April is here! You know what that means, parents! Time to dig the baseball gloves and soccer balls out of the garage and brush off the cobwebs! Who’s ready to get up early on Saturdays and freeze our tushies off watching double-headers in the rain?! Can’t wait to sign up and bring snack for 13 kids who probably just had a snack and really don’t need a snack after standing around picking dandelions for 45 minutes, but this is America and we do snacks! And, you know the best part—it’s time to deal with cranky parents who actually think it matters if the 16-year-old umpire makes a bad call in their 8-year-old’s Little League game! Yaaaaaaaay.
Well, the queen of parenting parodies herself, Deva from MyLifeSuckers, has tackled this annoying part of parenting in a hilarious video about kids’ sports. The song? Taylor Swift’s End Game, of course.
“I’m going to your sports game,” she starts out singing, already at the ball field, bat in hand. “All the parents there are insane. I’ll be screaming out your name. Every weekend it’s sports game… sports game… sports game…”
Yep, that’s exactly how the next four months of our lives will go, until baseball season finally wraps mid-summer. Every weekend. All weekend. Three kids = lots of “Did you grab the lawn chairs?” and “Can I go to the concession stand?” and me praying for an occasional rain-out.
But beyond the typical frustrations we all have with weather, cranky and tired kids, and forgetting our kid’s batting helmet at home, the big issue MyLifeSuckers pokes fun at is those crazy parents who act like their 4th graders are Derek Jeter. “Parents’ altercations… need some placations… Your kid has zero coordination…” she sings. But “Naaaaah, he’s better than yours,” a fellow mom fights back.
Then the video switches to the dads, who are no better, bragging about the goals their daughters score, how their kids are on A team not B team, and who’s most likely to get a scholarship.
“Just make the team, then you validate my life!” is perhaps the best line, as it encompasses what’s really going on here. Because let’s be honest—these are kids. They probably could not care less if they win or lose and can’t wait to get home to go swimming or ride bikes or play Minecraft. But their parents sure care, and sometimes a little too much.
Her clever parody touches upon other super fun parts of kids’ sports too—like wishing you could sleep in on Saturday (HA!), having to wash their nasty, rank uniforms, and the endless driving to and from fields.
But the best part of the video is the kids featured throughout—joyful, energetic, positive kids who remind those “crazy” parents that they are, in fact, just kids. Kids who deserve to run around, have fun, and not have Mom and Dad hang their hopes and dreams on them scoring a goal this Saturday. Message received, MyLifeSuckers. Message received.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I better go gather up our lawn chairs, cooler, blankets, sunscreen, snacks, Gatorade, camera, kids’ uniforms, and team roster to get ready for this weekend. (While I pray for rain.)