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Parenting is hard.
If you are a parent, you know this. If you are not yet a parent, consider yourself warned.
One of the most challenging aspects of it — for me at least— is navigating the byzantine and often enraging world of youth sports. (Sidebar: I am working on a book proposal about the problems — and some ideas for fixes — with the youth sports industrial complex.)
As a result, I am ALWAYS on the hunt for any help and guidance I can get on that front. Which brings me to a new book called “Soccer Dad” by David Murray.
Murray’s book is a first-person account of navigating the world of soccer — from the time a coach tells him that his daughter, Scout, has real potential (she is three and a half years old at the time) all the way through the conclusion of her junior year as a scholarship athlete as Ohio University.
It is heartfelt. It is honest. It is REAL. (There are a LOT of tears in this book — not just from Scout but from her parents too.)
While the book is ostensibly about soccer, it’s really about parenting — how to trust that you have equipped your child to deal with the ups and downs that growing up inevitably throws at them.
Speaking of tears, I found myself near them several times while reading this book as David describes the push-pull of parenting — I want everything to work out perfectly for my kid/I have to let my kid make their own mistakes and learn they can and will survive them — in deeply personal and affecting terms.
David and I talked about all that — and more — in a Substack Live conversation on Thursday. You can watch it above.
