National Girls and Women in sports day
Hello again! It's been a little while and I am so excited to write about National Girls and women in sports day. It does seem like there is a random day for everything but this one important. It's important to my daughters, it's important to me, it's important to so many girls and women in our world. To see the strong women who have come before, to remember what every single one of them went through to get to see a day made to recognize them and their accomplishments. In a world where men's sports are viewed as the most important, the most fun, the best of the best, it's important to shine a light on our girls.
Brianna and Chloe are both softball players, Chloe also played soccer when she was younger. They both worked hard and they both achieved goals they set for themselves. I love watching my girls play, I love watching their younger sisters watch them play. Brianna has continued to play where Chloe has found other interests, which happens when you get older, but she has the memories, she has the skills and understanding of how a team works because she played sports.
The lessons learned in any sport are important, but I do feel like girls/women learn a little more than boys. They are taught self worth, they are taught confidence, they are taught how to be the best they can be with the understanding that even if they are the best others will tear them down, will make comments about how their sport isn't a real sport, or isn't as hard as the boys version of the sport. They will be taught to hold their head high when people constantly over look them for the boy who didn't accomplish as much but is a boy so gets a step up just because. Now before I get the hate mail, and angry comments, some boys practice hard, some boys work their butts off, some boys don't think they're better just because their a boy. That doesn't change the fact that girls have to learn how to deal with that outcome as well as play and learn their sport.
Sports take resilience on all levels, sports take commitment from the athlete and their families. Sports takes a strong mind and strong body. I do not take lightly that my daughters are athletes and I am proud of them for pushing forward and standing tall as they learn and focus on their paths. I am grateful for friends and family who take an interest, who make them feel special because they chose to learn this sport. I am proud to watch them continue to grow in their sport and beyond their sport. It just gets difficult when conversations go from praising the girls to all the issues they are having, predator's, coaches who don't have their best interest in mind, colleges who prefer boys to girls sport programs, constant fear that their program will get cut, get removed from the Olympics, the professional teams going bankrupt and the chances for the girls to watch women play and give them goals to reach for constantly being taken away.
At the end of the day I want my girls to be proud of what they have done, be proud of going out there and trying something new. I want them to learn about the sport, the history of the sport and the women who made it possible for them to participate in the sport today. At the end of the day I want them to know that no matter what women in sports is important, on the field, as a coach, as any type of representation they can get, because women are important, women are smart and deserve to be taken seriously. I hope that one day it wont be such amazing news to hear a female coach was hired for a male sport, it wont sound so ridiculous that a female sports team wants to receive equal pay, or equal opportunities as their male counterparts. All you can keep doing is making noise, proving the negative people out there that they are wrong and that you are worth watching, you are worth learning about and you are worth so much more than a crappy comment on a social media page.
I am a proud mom of female athletes and that will never change.
