Cheer mom? What's that?
Think soccer mom.
A soccer mom is the type of mom that lives and breathes soccer. One, if not all of their kids are in the travelling league, and her weekends are consumed with tournaments, her nights after work consist of making sure her kids get to practice. Mom is on the sideline at every game being her own version of a referee and telling everyone that her kid is the best on the team.
It's no different in all-star cheerleading. Just add some glitz, glitter, sequins and heightened drama and you'll probably find a cheer mom out there. There are several categories a cheer mom could fall into, here are just five.
(Thanks to the TikToK User cheermomblog for all of her great examples used in this blog post)
1. The "8AM Meet Time? Bloody Mary Time!" Mom
One of the many joys of competitive cheerleading is having a bright and early meet-time. I remember times where I had to get up before the sun even rose to get ready for competition and meet my time as early as 6:30 in the morning. Typically when parents drop off their kids for meet-times, they'll give them a hug and kiss good luck and then have to figure out what they're going to do until their child competes probably two hours after their meet-time.
They start selling alcohol at 8:00AM, right? Perfect.
A group of moms will decide where they're going, and nine times out of 10, it's a restaurant that serves alcohol. A bloody a day, keeps the doctor away...At least a cheer mom would think so.
If there isn't a restaurant close by, they'll roll up to the meet-time with their kid, White Claw in their koozie ready to be cracked open.(See attached TikTok for a prime example). Alcohol seems to be the best way to pass time for parents, especially moms during those long competition days. Please don't come and watch your child if you're intoxicated, or do? Maybe drunk moms will cheer louder.
2. The "My Kid Should Be Center" Mom.
Probably the most stressful time of year is try-outs. Ending the past season and starting the new is a time where the cheer moms crawl out of bed after their Summit/Worlds hangover and try to tell coaches where their kids belong.
Nothing makes me roll my eyes more than when a mom approaches a coach after their kid tries out and tells me that they've been working so hard on their skills to level up. That's great that Brittany has been working on her back handsprings, but she doesn't mean she's automatically gonna make a Worlds team.
These moms don't really see what their kid is doing in practice. She might be doing her back tucks and back handsprings on the trampoline or AirTrack at home, but they can't even do a burpee without complaining. Moms see their kids doing all these skills outside of cheer or they see a video that the coach posts on social media and they think their athlete deserves every shining center spot in the routine. They post on social media that their kid is "working so hard to get their skills!" and posts a picture of their daughter/son doing a god awful heel stretch or Dorito-looking scorpion.
I hate to break it to ya Kathy, but your kid is back row in jumps, not even in running tumbling, and only base a shoulder sit in pyramid.
A huge pro-tip to these types of moms (you know who you are): Don't message the coaches asking about how your kid is doing in practice. Set up a parent meeting and we can talk face-to-face about how your athlete is progressing and what he/ she can do to improve.
3. The "Window Lickers."
I would say this one is pretty self explanatory. The dubbed 'window licker' is the parent that will sit in the gym's lobby or viewing area for the entirety of every one of their kid's practices during the season. Think "Dance Moms", where all the moms are sitting upstairs, watching as their kids have dance rehearsal. No, there's no pyramid at the beginning of each week, that's asking for an all-out war to start within the gym between the mothers to see which one of their kids is the best.
At some gyms, they don't allow parents to see the routines until showcase or even their first competition, but there are some parents that will still try and see what's going on. Some parents will sit in the lobby or viewing area and just talk about how great their athlete is, or talk trash about other athletes.
I wish we could put a camera in every lobby of big gyms, especially Cheer Athletics, Cheer Extreme and Top Gun, just to see how these parents act when they aren't in front of kids and just in a little gossip circle while their kid practices on the other side of the wall.
It makes my skin crawl seeing parents trying to peek in on practice and basically distract their kid. Your kid already has listening problems, the last thing I need is them to be waving at you or talking to you through the window. Go run some errands, go home and nap, go anywhere but the gym.
4. The "I'm Living Through my Child" Mom.
I love scrolling through social media and seeing moms constantly posting about how great their kid is, or something their kid is doing within the sport they're participating in. Some moms wish that they had the chance to do what their kid does. This could be taking the worlds floor, or even just cheering in general because the cost was so expensive. In order to fulfill that far-fetched dream of theirs, they decide to live through their kids.
My favorite things are the social media accounts that look like they belong to the athlete but then you read the bio on their Instagram and it says, "Mom ran and monitored." While the kid has access to the account, a majority of the posts on their feed are posted by the moms. Usually, it's their kids in Rebel Athletic practice wear, their faces are edited to the gods, and the caption is something cheesy like "Sugar, spice, and everything pumpkin spice" with a bunch of emojis and an abundance of hashtags. See example below:
These are the moms that will typically be the team moms. Team moms are in charge of coordinating team bonding events, team gifts for competitions, or anything that really has to with the team aspect. I've met some very cool team moms over the years and I've met some that make me question why they even took on the role as team mom.
They feel being team mom gives them some sort of authority and entitlement within the gym. I honestly think team mom is just another way for moms to get together and have some cocktails together during cheer season and use the excuse that it's just a team moms meeting.
Be careful around these moms, they're super judgmental, only care about their kid and if their kid is getting all the attention, and would probably fight you if you even say as little as a piece of hair is out of place on their child's head.
5. The "I have no idea what's going on, but my kid is happy" Mom.
These moms are my favorite type of mom. Nothing makes me happier than being able to help a parent, guide them in the right direction and help them become the best cheer parent ever. These are the moms that are brand new to all-star cheerleading, or even cheerleading in general. Most of the time, they're coming from gymnastics or dance, and their kid wants to try something different.
Usually, these moms are just happy their kid is doing something they love. They normally don't really understand the in's and out's of all-star cheerleading even after attending the parent meetings.
These moms are the ones who are constantly asking questions about where they get their makeup, how do they order shoes and uniforms? Why does their kid look like a contortionist being held in the air, a slew of things. It'll take some time for them to adjust to the new cheer life, but once they do, they become one of the cool moms.
I don't really have anything negative to say about these moms. As long as their kid is happy, they're happy.
Some of you reading this can probably think of so many moms that fall into each individual category, I know I had a couple in mind while writing about each one. I would love to hear any crazy cheer mom stories, the Crazy Cheer Mom Group on Facebook isn't enough. (Yes, that's a real thing).
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