When we took full custody of Middle at the start of his sophomore year of high school, I was suddenly navigating a world I’d never experienced: suburban Michigan high school sports parents. Being the second wife with a 10+ year age difference meant I was approximately 6-12 years younger than most of his friends’ moms. I have many friends (and a husband!) in their age bracket but this group had been together for several years while I was brand new.
A couple of weeks into the school year, Middle informed us he was going to join the swim & dive team. It turns out that he’d made friends with some swimmers when he started school and they told him that all but one member of the dive team graduated the previous year so he was pretty much guaranteed a varsity jacket. As someone who respects this kind of logic, and certainly does not have a varsity jacket, I was supportive but that was before I knew what becoming a swim team parent really meant.
It started simply enough: about two weeks after Middle joined the swim & dive team, I received an email asking if I wanted to buy the team’s signature family t-shirt. In the attached photo I saw the shirt read, in neon green, “We ❤️ our [SCHOOL] Swim & Dive Boys” except the layout made it look like “We ❤️ Boys” from any reasonable distance and that’s not the message I want on a t-shirt I’ll mostly wear as pajamas.
I was taught that “no thank you” is always an appropriate response so I replied “Oh I have so many t-shirts already, I’ll pass on this one but I’d love to make a donation!” If I did get a reply, it was curt.
The season got underway and I learned quickly that swim meets are brutal: you have the horrid humid natatorium air that is waging an active war against curly hair, the benches are so uncomfortable multiple more prepared parents bring their own seat cushions, and the varying quality of high school AV equipment that made it impossible to track what was happening or how long anything would take. I also learned that the diving team is NOT the same as the swim team and the divers lived in their own world with different hours and expectations that also isolated their parents from the rest of the group.
In an effort to bond the ostracized diving team parents, a pub night was organized and due to a work conflict, I arrived late. I hurried in and looked for a seat next to my husband but before I could sit down, one of the other dads said, “wait a second, Karen, before you sit, you have to tell us: green or blue?”
Unfortunately, I had spent enough time in Michigan to know this was asking if I supported the University of Michigan (blue) or Michigan State (green). More unfortunately for the Michiganders in my life, I truly didn’t care. I looked around the table, saw multiple people in Michigan State apparel and no one in U of M clothing and said “go green!” with all the enthusiasm I could muster. The same dad goes “well your husband is the only person here who said blue — what does that mean for your marriage?”
“I promise it’s the least of our problems.” It was meant to be funny. It was also true.
I quickly learned that if I wasn’t up to date on the latest Michigan State sports news, I wouldn’t fit in, and since Larry Nassar was the only MSU sports figure I had anything to say about, this didn’t bode well.
The season continued and the team was doing extremely well, buoyed in large part by a senior who had swam at Olympic qualifiers but never before for the high school team, preferring to focus on club sports. He wanted to be on the team with his friends his final year and set a pool record everywhere he went. The team advanced through the various stages of competitive Michigan high school sports and with each new round, an email would go out to the 80 members of the swim team and their parents that included a version of this message: “Moms! Let’s bring all our spirit by wearing our ‘We ❤️ our boys’ shirts. Karen, if you could just wear a black shirt to blend in, that would be great.”
The first time it happened, I had to reread the email in disbelief. At first I was incensed: I don’t need to be told to wear a black shirt, that’s all I wear anyways. But also, why am I being called out by name on an email to over 200 people? I forwarded it to my husband with the note “Is this real?” He replied: “Yes. Just wear black.” As if I needed the advice.
Week after week, a variation of the same email came through. “Karen, black shirt please.” “Karen, remember to wear black!” “Moms in spirit shirts, Karen in black.” I oscillated between regret that I hadn’t just bought the damn shirt and becoming highly rebellious — to the point where I considered looking up other schools’ colors just to wear them. Over time, I developed a callus for their unkindness.
I watched the swim team moms bond as they planned and executed various small-scale events together. At the end-of-season banquet in the spring, all those moms traded their ugly t-shirts for ugly floral dresses all clearly coordinated through group text and together they put on a FOUR HOUR event to celebrate the boys who they lovingly honored on their t-shirts for several months. I guess given the length of the average meet, a four hour banquet with well done prime rib and room temp potatoes doesn’t seem that bad, especially without the natatorium climate and seating challenges.
Seeing all of them together, I finally understood: the t-shirt was never the point. They had their own language, their own traditions, their own hierarchy — and the rules were invisible unless you’d grown up with them. Being “one of them” meant going to one of four Detroit area high schools, wearing bedazzled jeans in 2017, having strong opinions about MSU sports, and never once questioning why a shirt that read “We ❤️ boys” seemed like appropriate attire.
That fall, the emails started up again. This time we were asked to sign up for refreshment duties at various meets and practices. I logged into the portal and booked all my shifts on one day so I only had to do one run to the store, load up Middle’s car with the stuff and avoid multiple interactions. I got a message within 24 hours of signing up: “Hi Karen! I saw you scheduled all your slots on the same day but normally parents spread out the days so they participate multiple times in the course of the season.”
“Oh! I didn’t realize there was a rule against it and I took the required number of slots so this seemed like the most efficient way to participate.”
“There’s no rule but we really encourage parents to participate across the season. Some other moms saw that you did that and they did the same thing.”
I was tempted to reply with the obvious: that my approach clearly made more sense for everyone. Instead, I opted for the universal corporate language for “I hate you and I’m not going to change what I’m doing:” “Thanks so much for letting me know!”
No reply to that.
But I did realize, with some satisfaction, that my Norma Rae moment was the first crack in their system. A system I would enthusiastically leave the minute my kid graduated.
I once took an anthropology elective in college. Some sub-cultures are just mean, and there isn’t much you can do about it. It probably wouldn’t matter if you bought the t shirt or not; there would always be a reason to “other” you. Embrace your minority status, and embrace the 20% of the moms who are undoubtedly “othered” as well.
Can’t wait to use “Thanks for letting me know!” This week at work in honor of you 🩷 also if they had made any effort to get to know you, they probably would’ve been on the receiving end of fabulous baked goods. Their loss!