Soccer mom
noun:
a typical American suburban woman with school-age children.
As part of a weekly exercise that I do with the incarcerated women I teach, I ask them to give me their first impressions of me. I do this whole thing where I tell them that we form opinions of someone within the first five seconds of seeing them whether it's a job interview or first date.
I usually get things like "happy," "hard working," "confident," and one time was told that I looked like I had "been on the streets" apparently because my hair was a little messy that day.
One fine day a woman said, "You look like a soccer mom." I gasped, shed some tears and threw myself into the arms of the corrections officer always in the room in case someone threw a desk at me. I happened to be in a floral skirt that day and some semi-presentable top because I had a job interview immediately following the class. I wasn't my usual boho-chic self.
Here are the facts: I do have a daughter who plays soccer. She spends most of her time running up and down the field smiling and playing with her ponytail. When the ball gets to her, she does very little. My ex-husband is her coach and I will call him, cellphone to cellphone in the middle of the game, and watch from across the field as he feels the vibration in his pants.
"She's no Mia Hamm" I will say.
I pride myself (or maybe delude myself) into firmly believing that I am certainly not a "typical suburban woman with school-age children." What the fuck?! I'm not rich enough to live in the suburbs so maybe I can relax about the stereotype. Even though I did in fact forget the day I was supposed to bring oranges for halftime, I did get myself to the supermarket while my second husband and I frantically sliced, ran across the perimeter of the field and handed them off to my aforementioned first husband.
I do scream out words of encouragment from the sidelines and held my breath for the 15 minutes or so that she played goalie. She let in a couple of balls, cried and my husband showed mercy and took her out of the game. I begged him to never put her back in goal.
I don't need to know that the other mothers are whispering about reading "Fifty Shades of Gray, " giggling and revealing WAY too much than they should. I don't need to conjure up images of them in handcuffs or whatever else goes on in that book. My chair has inched further and further away from such conversations.
As my prison class continued I laughed like I always do with the women. I probably used some bad words and related to them in ways that they never would have expected by looking at me. Within 45 minutes, the woman who slapped that two-word assessment of me, said with a smile, "You ain't no soccer mom." I threw my arms up in victory and did a lap around the room to hoots and cheers. Balloons and confetti fell out of the ceiling, the women broke into song and the corrections officer performed an Irish step-dance. It was a heady moment.
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Comments
The funny or not so funny thing is, there are plenty of soccer mom's in prison. A friend who I "did time with" at Alderson Federal Prison Camp once said she would write an article entitled, "Where Have all the Mother's Gone?" Her point--so many mothers were in prison. While their children were left behind. These women were not only soccer moms, but PTA mothers and room mothers. Some were good mothers and others were hoping for a chance to be a better mother.
There is not a day that goes by, that I don't think of a mother I left at Alderson or the screams of a child who had to leave their mother after the visiting hours were up.
You would be surprised by the women you find in prison. More devastating, you would be ashamed to know of the kids many soccer moms and other moms left behind.
Gayle thanks for writing your articles. I'm sure the ladies and the correctional officers get a kick out of you. :-)
I hope my friend is inspired to write her story and post it. What I've learned is silence is not always golden.