Play time or family time?

by Phil Stott 

It's August, which means that, like Brett Favre, I'm once again going through the annual ritual of trying to decide whether or not to turn out for another season playing my sport of choice: soccer (football, where I'm from). For the past couple of years, I've been turning out on Sundays for my local men's league team in Long Island, and thoroughly enjoying the experience. Not only has it given me a link to my own culture following my move to the U.S., it's also provided me with something of a social circle, not to mention a means (and a reason) for staying in a reasonable condition physically.

I've been playing the game pretty much since I was old enough to walk, save for a two-year hiatus in my teens where I developed a knee condition brought on by-you guessed it-too much soccer, and it's pretty much been one of the major loves of my life. And, even at 30, I don't quite feel like I'm past being able to offer something to any team I could turn out for. Ideally, in fact, I'd like to go on playing for as long as my body will hold out.

So why think about quitting?

There's one major reason: family. As someone whose work life takes me away from home for 12 hours every day, I barely get to spend any time during the week with my daughter as it is, and nowhere near as much with wife as I'd like either. With a new soccer season due to start any time in the next month (the league I play in isn't the most organized affair I've ever been a part of-although that's part of the fun), I realized that I'm looking at signing up for another six months of being missing almost every Sunday. For home games that means three hours (including warm-up, half-time and the inevitable half-hour wait for the referee to show up), while for away games, it's not unusual for me to be out of the house for over five hours. Given that Maeve is only awake for around 24 hours in a weekend, being gone for between any of those seems like I'm wasting opportunities to spend valuable time with my child-time that I'll never be able to get back.

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm finding that making hard decisions is the difference between being a decent parent and a great one. Quitting a game I've known and loved for almost my whole life is one of the hardest decisions I think I've come across so far. Complicating matters is a discussion I had with my wife: when I raised the prospect of quitting, she told me she thought I was nuts. Her reason: "It's the one thing you've been doing ever since we met, and you've only got a few years left where you'll be able to play any more." Sad to say, but she has a point there.

And so, once again, I'm torn. Every time I think I've reached a decision one way ("it'll be good for me to spend more time with Maeve"), a perfectly valid counter-argument springs up from somewhere ("it gives me a reason to stay fit," or "it helps me get rid of the stress I build up during the working week.")

(By the way: anyone who's been reading Savvy Daddy for any length of time may recognize this kind of agonizing-I went through exactly the same thing, and dropped the same timely Brett Favre reference, last year. It doesn't make it any easier this time around.)

Perhaps the biggest complicating factor for me is that we're expecting a second child come February. That event will almost certainly spell the end of my career on the field, meaning that I'm torn between giving it up for good in advance, or having one final hurrah. 

With just a few weeks left to make a decision, I'm at a stage where I'm flip-flopping every few hours, wrapping myself up in nightmares of point and counterpoint. Soon enough, I'm sure, I'll make a decision one way or the other that I'll have to stick to. At the moment, I'm leaning towards retirement, but who knows where I'll be by the time the season kicks off. Given that I've already started trying to get in shape-just in case-I could easily change my mind. After all, it'd be a shame to waste all those miles of running...right?