A fed-up soccer mom calls for time out

SF Chronicle, Tuesday, April 24, 2007By Steve Weinberg

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Regan McMahon is ready to overthrow the American Way of Life. Her troops would consist primarily of soccer moms and soccer dads from well-to-do suburbs across the nation.

If that sounds like an unusual plan for organizing a revolution, well, it is. To implement the unusual plan, McMahon has written an unusual book as the call-to-arms. Part polemic, part investigative reporting, part parenting guide, part autobiography, part question-and-answer, the book could have turned into an ineffective mélange of formats -- much like so many revolutionists' manifestos from decades past. Somehow, against heavy odds given her approach, McMahon makes the book cohere.

The deputy book editor at The Chronicle, McMahon has demonstrated her acute intelligence countless times in the pages of this newspaper -- editing learned reviews and sometimes writing them. When it came to her family life, though, McMahon turned out to be a slow learner about her feelings of discontent. The epiphany finally arrived the year her daughter turned 11 and her son turned 14.

McMahon and her husband were devoting their Saturday to driving all over the Bay Area in separate cars with separate children. Hayley played soccer at 9 a.m. in Alameda. Kyle played soccer at 10 a.m. in the Oakland hills. Then Hayley needed to rush to a volleyball competition in East Oakland.

"This is nuts," McMahon remembers thinking to herself. Then she started pondering the implications of her revelation: "How did we get here? And can we maintain this pace? Why do seasons for different sports have to overlap? Why does everyone I know spend so much of their time in the car, shuttling kids to practices and games? ... Is this really the best version of childhood we can offer our kids? Or is everyone giving up too much?"

McMahon shared her preliminary thinking in The Chronicle Magazine. She received an overwhelmingly positive response, so she built her research into a book. This book.

As a child, McMahon was something of a figure skating prodigy. She swam and played basketball competitively in high school. She continues her athleticism in middle age. So she does not approach the book from a perspective that athletic competition is a waste of time for children. Instead, she adopts the perspective that athletic competition for children is healthy -- in moderation.

Each chapter adds a new layer to her call for revolution. Chapters 1 through 3 serve as social history -- how the rise of girls' sports complicated family life, how the overlay of soccer's popularity complicated family life even more and how the rise of elite soccer club teams for children sealed the demise of family life in hundreds of thousands of households. The history segues into the present, as related from Chapter 4 through Chapter 9 -- the risks to young bodies from too much competition, the deleterious reduction of unstructured play time, the death of family meals around the dining room table, the sometimes ridiculous amount of authority ceded by parents to the team coaches. Chapter 10 is the summing up of the revolutionists' manifesto.

The chapters are peppered with question-and-answer sections. Those interviewed by McMahon include lots of children. It is enlightening to learn their unvarnished thoughts about the heavily scheduled, heavily competitive existences they simultaneously love and hate. The placement of the interviews in the midst of chapters pretty much destroys the smooth flow that literary nonfiction needs to become memorable. As a result, "Revolution in the Bleachers" is best approached a chapter per day. Each chapter shines in isolation.

Many soccer moms and dads need to look inside themselves for a review of their true motivations, McMahon emphasizes. They must refrain from using their children to relive positive childhood experiences, to resolve unresolved issues revolving around athletic competition, to seek reflected glory, to push for college athletic scholarships.

McMahon sounds optimistic that her cautions and prescriptions will prevail. She provides examples from the Bay Area and across the nation. The revolution will remain bloodless, she hopes, but the psychological carnage to those who resist change could wind up as considerable.

National Book Critics Circle board member Steve Weinberg and his wife raised three children. For a while, they attended three different schools and competed in three different sports leagues.

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