Gymnastics Mom | Jessie's Story
If you follow us on social media, you know our brand ambassadors. These gymnasts work hard both in and out of the gym and share their love for gymnastics and Snowflake leotards with the digital world. They are influential figures for gymnasts of all ages.
Lyla is one of our newest ambassadors. She is a young Level 4 gymnast working hard to achieve her gymnastics dreams. Her mom wrote an amazing story that may resonate with many other gym moms. She writes about the constant struggle between encouraging your gymnast to follow her dreams and finding a way to support those dreams.
Is this Gymnastics Mom Doing Enough?
When your daughter is six years old and tells you she wants to be an Olympic gymnast, it’s admirable and adorable at the same time.
When that dream is still a real thing for her at age seven, eight, and nine you wonder where that fire in her comes from, how the passion lives in her, and of course, what you can do to help.
As a gymnastics mom, I’m totally new to this sport. My daughter doesn’t have the luxury of getting a former gymnast mom or anyone in our family for that matter. There is a learning curve with the terminology she comes home with every day. What the heck is a giant? A kip is a big deal but what is a kip? I feel I should know these things because I’m her support system and her biggest fan. The education that comes with being a gymnastics mom is heavy; especially for those that want to go far in the sport. Sometimes I feel like I need a crash course on how everything works and what I need to know for her sake.
But despite not being knowledgeable about the sport, it still matters what you do as a mom of a gymnast. By joining Instagram, researching topics, following USA Gymnastics, and reading, I feel like I’ve learned a lot in the past few years. Unfortunately what I’ve learned the most is that being an elite gymnast and making it all the way is incredibly harder than I ever imagined it could be.
Every day I watch my daughter work hard - harder than I have ever worked for something in my entire life. Conditioning, long practices, sacrifices, and more are an everyday occurrence in our lives. Sometimes I worry it’s taking over our life but then I realize the saying go big, or go home is literally gymnastics to a tee.
In gymnastics, there is no off-season.
In gymnastics, if you’re not naturally flexible, you have to stretch and make yourself flexible every day.
In gymnastics, as you grow stronger, your body has to adjust to the extra weight of that strength forcing you to relearn things.
In gymnastics, frustrations run high as you attempt to get a skill practicing over and over again.
Ambassador Lyla after a successful meet.
No matter what happens in our gymnastics life, my daughter still presses on. She amazes me with her passion and drive. If she gets upset or angry, she goes and does conditioning in full-out beast mode. With every pull up or squat she gets this look on her face of intensity that I cannot fathom. She would live at the gym if I let her. We often joke that when we win the lottery, the first thing we do is build our own gym in the backyard for her.
My favorite quote from my gymnast daughter: “I bet Simone Biles had tons of rips, but she didn’t give up and neither will I!”.
As a mom you want what’s best for your children, always. I want her to have every opportunity to make her dreams come true but the difference is that she can get the opportunity and she works for it. I am not the kind of mother who gives her whatever she wants. But that type of parenting, although stressful yet fair, breaks all the rules when it comes to gymnastics. I want to be a good mother and do everything I can to help my child be the best she can be, and reach towards her dreams. In this sport, it’s really about how big your wallet is as opposed to how big your dreams are.
Gymnastics is one of the most expensive sports in the United States. The better the athlete you want to be, the more gym time you need. The more gym time you get, the more expensive it is. I’m constantly taking a hard look at the size of the dream and the size of the money it takes to get even a chance at it. We are a regular family; two parents with good jobs and many perks in our lives. I am so grateful for what we can do for our children and they know how lucky they are. But gymnastics even goes beyond that. When you add up the gym time, the meet fees, the leotards (the more sparkles, the bigger the price!), the clinics, camps, and more… it makes my head dizzy.
Of course when I see how happy my child is doing what she loves and fighting for her dreams, it’s hard to worry about the financial burden of it.
Regardless of my lack of knowledge of the sport and the expenses we shell out for it, I still find myself asking the same question day after day. Am I doing enough?
It’s hard for mama bear to keep from going crazy when I see other girls having opportunities that my child doesn’t. I struggle to keep that balance of the mantra “She just turned 9 years old and this isn’t our life”. And then I’ll see her writing in her journal about her dreams, I’ll see her reading the Simone Biles book, or I’ll be timing yet another handstand hold, and all that goes out the window. I want to do more for her to help her dream come true. But the answer is simple - I don’t know what I can do and I don’t think I can afford it.
So that brings me to another issue… at what point and how do we encourage our children’s dreams at the same time keeping them realistic?
I worry that someday I’m going to look back at this time in my life being the ultimate gymnastics mom to my daughter and her teammates and have regrets. What if I had fought harder? What if I had more money? What if I had done more to help her dreams become a reality? Have I done enough?
Ambassador Lyla Ford and her mom Jessie.
