1)    I know nothing about sports ball activities. I was what they referred to as a “lipstick lesbian” in the 1990’s; today, though, I can hardly find the time to scrub my body of child cooties from daycare/ a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party/ the train table with possible toddler vomit residue at the bookstore/my teen’s questionable weight-lifting towel. I certainly don’t have time to put on make-up.  

2)    If I had an extra three hours a week to myself, I might shower every day, shave my legs, or wax my upper lip. I might pee without an audience or watch an entire television show without puppets. Heck, I might even buy new batteries for my dead vibrator and pluck my gray pubic hairs.  

3)    The idea of organizing a group of completely inept children to throw or hit or kick a hard spheroid towards another group of bumbling beings on purpose, all while drunken parents are screaming obscenities at them from the sidelines to do so as effectively as possible, is morally reprehensible. I mean, we might as well blindfold them, give them sticks, and set them free to beat anything in their path at besties’ birthday parties. 

4)    Sports are a matter of physics. Have you ever tried to teach a kindergartner physics? Perhaps Newton came up with his famous Laws of Motion after watching a rafter of children-come-wild turkeys running around a gym where other packs of pocket-sized people were also blindly sprinting—all with untied shoelaces.  

5)    I have a terrible memory; I have resigned myself to early onset Alzheimer’s as I refuse to give up the convenience of microwaving my children’s food or eating the especially tasty preservatives that kill rodents on contact. There is no free app to help me remember strange 2020’s names and their weird spellings: Enoch, Callum, Ellerrie, Aisla? A team sport would be, minimum, seven other linguistically-challenging names to remember, including at least three versions of ‘Isabella.’  

6)    I am not emotionally ready to break out of my very comfortable, introverted cocoon. I hardly speak to my own spouse. There is no amount of money that could tempt me into chitchat with a dozen different sets of parents—not including the divorced/ separated/ “open”/ throuple sets—about what I do for a living, what kind of third-row van I’m fetishizing, which organ I sold to take my kids to Disney World or how much I want to smother my spouse in her sleep for snoring.  

7)    I don’t believe in new-fangled ideology like “All kids get equal playing time” and “Everyone gets a participation trophy.” I learned some important truths about humanity when I was chosen last for every, solitary team sport in middle school gym class: Some kids are athletically gifted and peak in high school and some, let’s face it, are smart, gruesomely uncoordinated, but end up with six-figure salaries and excessively attractive sex partners, anyway. These are necessary lessons, and if I had to question my own self-worth in this way, my kids should have to, as well. 

8)    I know trying to parent in public is a pointless endeavor. My children do not listen to me at home, when I can literally take away everything they own and threaten to crush their fragile reputations by following them on TikTok.  Why in the world would they listen to me in front of ten of their sassiest friends who have no reason to personally fear me? Then there are the myriad parents watching me, many of whom I’ve bragged to about my “angelic” child; clearly I can’t lose my shit with said spawn on a basketball court or other venue with judgy spectators. I prefer to parent in the comfort of my own, autocratic home where I can liberally yell profanities at the top of my lungs.  

9)    I do not have enough appropriate athleisure wear in my closet to be seen three times a week at any place of fitness other than my unfinished basement. My exercise outfits consist of too-small yoga pants (pre-pregnancy) and a mismatched sports bra á la sweat stains and strained seams that may or may not have been picked up off the floor and sniffed, first. The cherry on top is that faded college t-shirt with the holes in the armpits. I think we can all agree that real coaches, especially lesbian coaches, should have “presence,” or at least a certain polyester charm. 

10) Finally, I do not want to have to endure a car ride home with any pissy child—but especially my own hormonally-charged tween monster—who has lost a game and blames it on her coach.