Wives of Professional Athletes, Part Eight

Yesterday I dealt with one of the other issues Dr. Ortiz briefly mentioned in the article I have been going through and he dealt with more in the radio transcript: marital infidelity. Today I want to look at the second issue: mother-in-laws.

Maria Tickle: What about the role of the athlete’s mother? Is it true that there’s a bit of a power struggle over who gets to wash his shorts or irons his jersey?

Steven Ortiz: The mother-in-law issue was a very important issue and a very stressful issue. We spoke earlier about different kinds of stresses. There are certain stresses that are germane to the husband’s sport career, the moving around, the trades, different kinds of career setbacks, and then there are other kinds of stresses like groupies, and mothers-in-law, which come with this territory for the wife. Now the mother-in-law issue is an interesting one because in my work I did not find the Little League Dad. This is the very kind of domineering controlling father who set very high standards for his sons. Instead I found the mother who played that pivotal role in an early sport socialisation for her son. They spoil them, they cater to them from a very young age, they would chauffeur them to all of their games and practices, made his favourite meals, in certain ways perhaps according to what the wives told me, smothered her sons.

Maria Tickle: So does that then become the role of the wife, to take over what the mother was doing before?

Steven Ortiz: Exactly, because once that pattern has been established in the life of a son as he grows up, it becomes part of what I call the spoiled athlete syndrome, because the mother is a very important figure in that process, and that process continues with team-mates and coaches and female partners, community leaders, other students and so on, who continue this process of accommodating and catering and spoiling those athletes, through those middle school years, through the inter-collegiate years, and then you have this product at the end of this process, as a professional athlete who doesn’t take responsibility for his affairs off the field, for his activities off the field. He doesn’t take responsibility for family issues, parental issues, because he’s never learned how to. And so when he does get married, in a way he is replacing that first influential figure in his life, his mother, with a newer updated improved version of his mother. And then there are these horrible power struggles that emerge between controlling mothers-in-law and the wife.

I found it interesting that Dr. Ortiz mentioned this source of stress in both pieces and that he is doing research specifically on the subject of mother-in-laws and professional athletes wives.  I have yet to meet a basket wife who didn’t have some sort of strife in the relationship with her mother-in-law at some point in her marriage.  At first, I thought maybe it was just a basketball thing, but it looks to be an issue across the board with professional athletes.

The more I have seen and thought about this issue, the more I see it as an issue of identity.  As Dr. Ortiz noted, the mother is often a huge part of the professional athlete becoming what he is.  She takes him to practices, sacrifices a lot of her time and money into his sport and frees him of other responsibilities so that he can focus on his sport.  Because of the amount of energy that is focused into her child, it is tough not to let your identity become “being _____’s mom.”  Anyone who has watched sports on television knows who they tend to show in the crowd during a game: the star athlete’s mom.

But when their son gets married, all of the sudden they are not the main person in the athlete’s life anymore.  Suddenly, reporters don’t want to talk to them, they want to talk to the wife.  Cameras don’t zoom to the mother anymore, they zoom in on the wife (until children are born and then they zoom in on the children!)  The mother may have been at every game for 12 years of her son’s life and suddenly he is married, living in another country and she finds out how he did through an internet website.  This can be quite a shocker for a lot of mothers.  The person that they identified themselves with is no longer being identified with them anymore.

This issue has caused me to think a lot through how I want to equip myself and my children should any of them ever become a star athlete (even if they don’t, these are all things we will do anyway!).  I think Dr. Ortiz is right in saying not only does the mother suffer, but the son does as well in not being brought up as a well-rounded person.  Here are some things we would like to implement as our children grow:

1. Our marriage stays central. Many of the mothers that struggle seem to have weak marriages.  They look like they are more married to their sons than they are to their husbands.  Joe and I work to not be child-centered at a young age and will hopefully continue to work to do that as our children grow too.  I think the foundation must be laid now though.  Our activities and daily life do not revolve around our children.  We want the best for them and love them, but we try to keep the message very clear that Joe and I are a team that will endure, while they are the guests in our home who will one day leave.

2. Our children are given responsibilities. This is a home where all contribute to the well-being of the house not for an allowance or for rewards, but because we are all members.  So each child is given responsibility according to their age and their ability.  They will continue to have chores until they leave the home.  These chores will increase as they grow and include things that we feel they should know how to do to live on their own.  So as they get older, cooking, cleaning and laundry will all be skills they are taught how to do so that they can make a healthy contribution to our home and to their own home some day.

3. Our children will not be given privileges without conditions. One of the best things my parent’s ever did for me was to give me a “car contract”.  My parents are well-off and had the money to get me a car when I turned 16, but they made sure that I still understood that this was a privilege, not a right.  They drew up a car contract that stated what I needed to fulfill in order to drive that car.  I paid for gas, kept it clean to their standard, had it home by a certain time, only had a certain number of passengers and earned certain grades.  One of the biggest problems I see in parents today is they think to be loving means to give their kids things.  In reality, they are being unloving by teaching their kids that things will just be handed to them on a silver platter.  There are consequences to actions and if you want privileges, you must perform in such a way to earn them.

4. Our children will learn to manage their own money. Again, I was really thankful my parents taught me to do this.  There were a variety of ways they were able to make me responsible for money, while still enabling me to play 3 varsity sports, obtain honors grades, be student council vice president and also be involved in orchestra and chorus.  So often I hear the excuse that if a high school student really wants to succeed in athletics, that they don’t have time for a job.  I worked in the summers as a life guard and also at soccer camps.  That money needed to sustain me throughout the school year in order to pay for gas and any other extras that I wanted.  This was a great way for me to learn how to budget!  I had a checking account opened for me and I was taught how to balance my check book.  My parents did pay for my clothing, but again they did it in a way that required responsible thinking.  I was given a “clothing allowance” every fall and spring.  That money needed to pay for whatever clothing I needed.  So if I were irresponsible to buy an expensive sweater and then had socks with holes in them and wanted new socks, I needed to wait until my next clothing allowance.  It was a great way to provide for my needs and teach me that money has value.

5. We will emphasize that worth is not found in sports. If you are a star athlete, it is a battle to remember that who you are is not based upon what you do in athletics.  We want to continue to emphasize that our worth is found in Jesus.  When your identity is solidly grounded in being a child of God, the whole family is happier (mother and son included).

So those are just a few things we have thought about for our family.  Just as it is a battle to not find my identity in being Joe’s wife, it is a battle for mothers as well.

And so we end our series on being a wife of a professional athlete.  In no way did I cover everything, but it was an attempt to give a glimpse into our world to those who are not in it and an encouragement and challenge to live faithfully to those who are a part of it.