In Praise of Soccer Dads

October 1, 2022

I’m the only soccer mom this morning. It’s windy and cold, fields wet with the leftovers of the early stages of Hurricane Ian and threatening more rain at any moment. “Yeah, the dads drew the short end of the stick today!” one of the other parents calls out cheerfully, as I join the handful of dads who have accompanied their six year olds to this morning’s game. “And not a lot of siblings either,” he notes. 

None in fact, except my middle, who has thoughtfully dressed for the weather in a peachy pink sundress with brand new frilly peach shorts and a light pink cardigan. “Mom, do I look cute?” she keeps asking, posing with comedic exaggeration. She’s 4, she always looks cute. I’m not ready for aesthetic self-consciousness and the inevitable comparisons that always leave one feeling wanting. Give me more time with this gorgeous innocent, utterly unaware of (and usually totally unconcerned with) her beauty, who blissfully scoots down the alley to ballet class at our local yoga studio in her leotard and tights.

Ten minutes past the hour and not a single member of the other team has arrived, but seven of our eight players are here, scrimmaging happily. My girl wants in, and happily passes a ball back and forth with me and another player’s dad, her light up Frozen sneakers beeping to alert every time she kicks the ball. When the game finally starts, she sets up an umbrella as a tent and balls up on the wet ground underneath, contentedly snacking on goldfish someone else’s parent shared. (Did I bring snacks? I did not. Score one for the dads.)

I don’t think it’s the short stick being at the game. It’s not painfully cold, and the rain has paused. The parents of my kids’ schoolmates have unfailingly fascinating backgrounds, and no one is precious about it. The parent sideline game is a wonderful leveler; you may have a crazy security clearance but on Saturday mornings, you’re just a guy in muddy sneakers whose kid gets distracted on the field along with mine. One second you’re sharing techniques for cleaning crumbs out of car seats, the next it’s a conversation about some big idea, which is inevitably interrupted by the need to chase a ball or baby. 

The team, in its third season together, is all kids from the public elementary school across the street, who we will see on weekend playground visits, at drop off, at the school events that are slowly opening back up. We will see their parents too, running into each other at the farmers’ market and walks in the neighborhood, slowly moving from soccer sideline chats to birthday parties in the park, to playdates with parents tagging along, to casual dinners. A chance encounter on the sidewalk can lead to a five minute chat, a shared activity to an invitation to share a meal, unfolding a beautiful and mysterious progression from “person connected to a kid my kid interacts with at school” to “part of our extended friendly community” to “friend.” It’s enormously satisfying. These relationships, whether they consist of occasional congenial chit chat when paths chance to cross or grow into rich, intimate connections, create a sense of belonging and being known, filling key elements in the hierarchy of needs and adding texture and joy to everyday life. The people make this place good to live in.

Making friends is hard. But shared experience of parenting young kids in the city–through the pandemic no less–and shared spaces conducive to repeatedly running into people are a surprisingly good recipe for friendship. Before Covid, most of my friendships were at work; as we’ve all remained remote and many have moved on, those have largely faded. Now, my human interactions increasingly come from where I live. Even as I’ve mourned losing several good neighborhood friends to moves over the past year, it is at least mildly comforting to recall they too were once just people I saw around the neighborhood, with a kid approximate in age to mine. The parent I’m chatting with at the soccer sideline today and ran into at the farmers’ market tomorrow could become a deep friendship this year. 

Chance encounters–but not accidental. The neighborhood infrastructure supports these relationships at every turn. Every street has sidewalks, where we frequently pass by people we’ve met before. Some have benches, swings with invitations to take a ride, street-facing porches and yards where people gather and greet passers-by; little free libraries with strong rotation abound. There’s a neighborhood public library with plentiful kid activity, a weekly farmers market, a musician who hosts regular outdoor concerts in his front yard, with snacks donated by a local restaurant. There’s a plaza that hosts things like chalk drawing festivals, bike repair clinics, live music where police officers dance with elderly Salvadorans and a woman dishes out free pupusas. The main commercial street is lined with city government sanctioned, now-permanent, “streateries” where lively interactions overflow into public space. The yoga studio hosts pre-K ballet classes.

All of those things happen because of individual people who make the choice to invest in their community, making a place where people stand a chance of thriving. The other week I heard Tom Hanks, of all people, wax positively poetic about a 2018 book by DC area journalists James and Deborah Fallows. (He ignited a fire a few years ago with a single tweet about the book, proclaiming he was ready to move to Sioux Falls. When I heard him last week, he spoke for at least five minutes straight, earnestly recommending every person in a packed auditorium make it required reading, and applied homework.) The authors traveled the nation to find out what makes some towns work, and, at least in Tom Hanks’ telling (per his instructions, I just borrowed it from said public library), the main difference is having an answer to the question, “Who should I talk to?” One or more central organizing figures who know people, make things happen, get invested. This little, ordinary thing is what makes cities work. The author is someone like that for my city–he contributed to a movement called Quiet Clean DC, “promoting livable communities,” that spearhead a ban on the noisy, polluting scourge of gas-powered leaf blowers. I can think of people I’d suggest for my neighborhood. I aspire to be one.

One of the people who surely gets nominated here is Bill, the man who volunteers to run a network of parents who take turns overseeing the opening and closing of the public school playground to the public evenings and weekends. Because of Bill, the playground is a place where little kids burn off energy, parents chat at the end of weary days working remotely, a group of women workout regularly in an informal fitness class, kids’ teams practice soccer, and when they wrap up, teenagers take the field. It is a place of gathering and connection, where some of my most cherished relationships have formed–all thanks to Bill’s willingness to man a SignUp Genius.

And the playground, of course, is just one of the many critical functions served by the neighborhood public elementary school. Our neighborhood is a mix of $1M+ houses and apartments affordable enough (perhaps, because they’re shared) for low income families, with a high percentage of native Spanish speakers. There are a significant number of international families too; the playground is always a hodge podge of Italian, French, Spanish–World Bank employees, Americans who met spouses overseas. A large enough percentage of the school qualifies for free lunches that despite the non-trivial wealth occupying the same physical space, everyone eats school lunch together, for free. The school is a Spanish immersion program, a positive feature for many parents of native Spanish and English speakers alike, and consequently, brings together kids from many different cultural and societal spheres. It offers a bridge across social divides for those looking for one. And it’s constant presence, the centering physical space, the creation of a shared routine, the web of relationships, all the features of a strong institution, offers our whole family a sense of rootedness here, a way of belonging. A neighborhood school is a primary institution to invest in to support the health of the whole community; it offers a tangible opportunity to pursue the flourishing of a community, to care about and impact outcomes for more than just me and mine. And for someone in my stage of life, the neighborhood school is the obvious first neighbor to love.

The local public elementary school may not feel like a viable option for everyone, and granted, you don’t have to attend to contribute–but there is something about having a horse in the race that pulls you to care in ways that are just harder to make yourself do when it is all theoretical. (And honestly, you’re not just more likely to contribute when you have a stake, you’re less weird. The adult who volunteers at the school his kids don’t attend can be a little suspect.) Especially in a neighborhood like this, with distinct strands of inhabitants, the public school plays a critical role in connecting the fate of those with more power and those with less. Our kids all experience the same quality of playground toys, the same variety of after school club options, the same engagement level of teachers and administration.

I read an article recently reflecting on the growing research around the flawed method of teaching kids how to read present in many schools in America. What stood out was not the fact that there was a problem in the school, but that in the school profiled, a concerned parent raised her voice and intervened, improving the situation for not just her child, but all the kids at that school. Kids need to learn how to read. I am confident mine will, with the opportunities available to them, whatever happens at the neighborhood elementary school. But what about the rest of the kids on our block? What if our local school is failing in this area? One option is to peace out, send my kids somewhere better. But what about the families who can’t afford it? If I’m invested in the public school, if my interests are tied to the common good, I’m motivated to inquire, to speak up, to pitch in, and like the woman in the article, more kids might have a shot at what my kids are guaranteed either way. That’s the kind of world I want, the kind of participant I want to be. Not only to care for my own, but because I believe God’s kingdom looks like a world where everyone can flourish.

But the truth is, it’s really hard. I want to love my neighbors through my engagement with major institutions, like the school. I want to be a committed, engaged parent volunteer. But I haven’t even gotten around to getting finger-printed so I’m cleared to volunteer at events with kids present! Donating tissues and wet wipes to the kids’ classrooms only goes so far. Both to muster up the energy to keep trying, and to actually see a difference, I can’t do it alone. Sustained engagement, overcoming the inconvenience of giving up free evenings, choosing a meeting over Netflix, continuing to show up, even when it feels like a slog that isn’t making a difference (and as far as I can tell, pretty much all paths to transformation include a good deal of moments like that), takes community. 

I would love to have a network of other committed families investing in the school together as an intentional way of loving our neighbors, as a demonstration of how the good news I believe is truly good for the people around me, whatever they do or don’t think of God. The most natural allies for letting this little light of ours shine would be fellow Christians, but I can’t find many in the public school. Instead, the people of good will ready to roll up their sleeves and make this place work for everyone are not obviously living out any particular faith belief, far as I can tell; they’re just trying to build a community that works because it feels like the right thing to do. They’re the soccer dads volunteering as coaches, braving the rain to cheer for the kids on both teams; the parents cooking up pupusas and injera for the school’s international night; the mom at ballet class joining the PTO. They’re people of good will, awash in common grace, making school, our neighborhood, our corner of this world, work–for all of us. They’re the Bills of this community, and I want to be more like them.