My 5-year-old is learning to skate.
Soon, he wants to play hockey. And I’m going to let him.
Because when I watch him on the ice, my sensitive son seems inquisitive, animated, brave.
Not when I’m around, of course. When I took him skating, he wouldn’t let go of my hand. He cried that it was hard. I rewarded him with a donut for skating 10 feet on his own.
But when he stuffed his feet into hockey skates and went out for his first lesson at the Shaker Heights rink, protected by a helmet and padded hockey pants? He was a different kid.
He marched. He wiggled backward. He followed directions from teachers, for an hour. (This is a kid whose attention span, except while watching “Power Rangers,” is constantly hijacked by Legos.) After an hour-long lesson, he fell exhausted into bed.
Until now, my kids have merely dabbled in sports. Aside from swim lessons, I haven’t signed my kids up for any organized, be-there-at-this-time extracurricular activities.
We run around the backyard kicking a soccer ball. We shoot baskets in our Little Tikes hoop. We mess around with toy lacrosse sticks and Frisbees, hit tennis balls on a backboard. And both kids ski at Boston Mills with my mom and me.
Life seemed busy enough without rushing home on a weeknight to ferry my son to soccer practice or giving up Saturday morning adventures for toddler tumbling classes.
(Honestly, I have no idea how working parents manage their kids’ myriad activities. Do they have nannies, rather than child care? Very helpful, very nearby grandparents? I am terrified as we move into this hamster-wheel, busy-busy-busy school-age stage.)
Now that my son is 5, preparing to enter kindergarten in the fall, I want to encourage his own passions and personality, and give him his own big-kid outlet. Something of his own, without his 2-year-old sister tagging along.
He wants to play hockey, he says, because he likes scoring goals. (I couldn’t get anything more specific out of him. “Why do you keep asking me that?” he wanted to know.)
I want him to play hockey, too.
Why? Maybe because I’m Canadian? Because my brother and my dad played? Because hockey players seem wholly independent and self-assured? Because hockey moms seem kind of cool?
(It’s not just me. There’s a Minneapolis producer who wants dramatic youth or high school hockey moms to star in a reality TV show called “Hockey Moms.”)
There are drawbacks to hockey, of course.
The possibility of concussions, for one.
Shaker Heights hockey players as young as 5 undergo baseline concussion testing
The cost, for another. Between equipment (helmet, shoulder pads, elbow pads, shin pads, etc.) and ice time, hockey is a pricey sport — especially compared to the ubiquitous youth soccer leagues. (Which I want my kids to also try.)
But thankfully, so far I’ve found used gear. My dad got my son a hockey stick for Christmas. And he got two jerseys, too.
Both are Team Canada. One’s a 99, for Wayne Gretzky. And one is 10, for his birth year, with his last name sewn on by my mom. He’d wear them every day if he could.
I’m thrilled that he’s found something to keep him active in the winter, a sport that is teaching him much-needed resilience.
I watch as he falls, Boom!, on the ice and scrambles up again. I smile as he hikes his hockey pants up on his skinny, nonexistent waist.
I will happily, frantically rush home for this.
Want more mom news? Follow me on Facebook or on Twitter @lauraejjohnston.
