If you’re a parent of school age kids, like I am, chances are you spent at least part of your weekend under the hot sun (did I mention record heat in Northern California?) — filling water bottles, schlepping coolers, and setting up lawn chairs — all in the name of youth soccer, something I expounded upon in my Soccer is the New Piano Lesson post. This isn’t exactly the life I dreamed of when I envisioned my adulthood. And the world of team sports wasn’t even part of my own childhood.
How did we get here?
That’s what I reflect on in my essay, “An Unlikely Soccer Mom”, which is part of a new anthology on parenting called “Mamas and Papas” published this month by City Works Press. From the book cover:
Pieces range from the laugh-out-loud funny stories of Sam Apple’s foray into a Mommy and Me yoga class with his son and Neal Pollack’s adventures with his son’s initial attempts at texting, to Wanda Coleman’s stark poetry of poverty and Ella Wilson’s quietly devastating account of her brush with postpartum depression. The contributors survey everything from the emotional toll of IVP to the perils and rewards of international adoption. Welcome to the wild and wonderful world of parenting.
It’s available directly through the City Works Press website, as well as Amazon.com.
If you’re in the San Diego area, you can also tune in to KPBS 89.5FM radio at 10 AM Thursday, September 30 to hear an interview with Mamas and Papas editor Kelly Mayhew and her husband (and book contributor) Jim Miller.
“Mamas and Papas” will also be featured as part of the 5th Annual San Diego City College Int’l Book Fair, going on now through Saturday, October 2.
Sounds like a fun anthology. Congratulations!
Thanks! If you are near San Diego, hope you can check out the book fair. I’ll be reading an excerpt sometime at 4pm on Saturday 10/2.