Snipe Hunting

Over the past several years, I have read the sporting stories about out of control parents harassing their children, harassing the other children, harassing spectating children - harassing basically anyone under 4 feet tall holding a juice box. And I smugly said to myself that I was better than that. I was not one of those parents.

Apparently, I was wrong, and I would like my crow grilled with a side salad, thank you very much.

We spent Sunday at a tae kwon do competition for K, who loves these things. Honestly, it's like watching 82 instructors herding 624 cats around a gym, but she loves them, so I pay my entry fee, admission for the rest of us, and we go so that she can compete. She's a green stripe now, which basically means that we've paid $4 million in testing fees she's in the advanced group now, and competition gets a bit stiffer. These girls don't play around any more, they've earned a few trophies, and they like it.

There are three parts of the competition - form, board breaking and contact sparring. If you're new to martial arts, form is basically the dance-off, and the other two are basically what they sound like, particularly the contact part. Form went off without a hitch, one trophy earned, two to go. Board breaking wasn't a total loss, and she broke one of the two, second trophy in hand.

And then we get to the sparring. Now, the entire 427 2 hours, K sat with her 4 other competitors, all girls 7&8, all green belts, blond ponytails o'plenty. They giggled, clearly gossiped about the competition, and basically acted like 8 year old girls. I go to the floor to adjust K's sparring chest pads, which are not unlike the Michelin Man ensemble, and the other girls are talking smack to my girl.

"You know, we just love to spar. My kicks are the best in class."

"K says she really just doesn't want to spar S, she's dangerous."

"She's just scared because she's so much smaller than we all are."

Now. To be fair, K was easily 6" shorter than the crowd. It's a place we're pretty familiar with, being that she's often mistaken for a triplet with my 5 year olds. It's not like they had to look far for material or anything.

And apparently, this "women are bitches to each other" starts in grade school and does not allow a grown woman to stop herself, even when talking to a snarky 8 year old with better hair. Without a thought in my head, I answered truthfully & all mom-like, "All four of you are going to do fine. And K won last time, so she'll be just fine."

Whoops. Apparently, that second bit? It was out loud. I am that parent. And I didn't even realize it, since the girlfriend code had kicked in, and I had defended my girl. My husband, on the other hand, suggested I take a walk around the parking lot and that perhaps I was taking this too seriously.

It definitely brings up the bigger question for me about why women can't just be supportive, even at a young age, and what we're teaching our girls. K and I talked about standing up for ourselves, and that perhaps Momma got a little over-protective of her Princessa. K admitted that she was happy I put an end to it, which is all I wanted, and that she needs to tell people that she's sick of being picked on instead of just sitting there and taking it. We came up with some choice comebacks for short jokes, all of which were her ideas, not mine, I promise.

And I will apparently be entering "sports parent snark management" sessions, as dictated by my loving husband.

Oh, the sparring results? She pretty much got her ass handed to her by the "dangerous" girl. Anyone have any barbecue sauce? I hear it's great with crow.