Sometimes we think we are progressive parents raising boys/girls without any gender bias only to realize it suddenly that a lot of such biases come to kids subconsciously from the environment they live in. I had one such realization recently.
We have relocated to a different country a few months back and one day my son came back from his school telling me surprised that his soccer coach is a woman. I said casually, “yes, that’s great.”
“But Mumma, she is a mam and not sir!”.
There was a clear element of surprise in my son’s tone. And I got it from where it was coming. To start with, despite being an open-minded, confident, ambitious woman, I am not a sports person by default. The only two physical activities that I was fond of since childhood was swimming and cycling. And as I entered into adulthood, I picked up Yoga due to health reasons and became addicted to it. Even though I am physically active, I am not the one who plays football or cricket with my son. And none of his previous sports teachers in our home country were women. All, and I repeat all his coaches in the past have been men. So perhaps his surprise was natural. Since that day, I have been reading him stories of famous female athletes, sportswomen, and more.
While biographies are good but I landed up recently on this book titled “Soccer With Mom” by Frank Berrios and Jess Golden. It’s such a cute book presenting the day-to-day life of a brother and sister and their mom.
Their mom Karen who is also a soccer coach and loves to play with kids on weekends. In this delightful slice-of-life family story, we get to see the weekday and weekends of the family. Saturday is a busy day for both brother and sister who play soccer in a league coached by their mom. The boy loves soccer and loves it more as he is being coached by his mother.
Sweet, fun, and delightful – that’s what this book is. An easy to read, day to day story about a young boy and his sister that kids below 6 years would love to read.
Not only this book shows a woman as a coach, rather a mom as a coach and I loved this part :).
And as I have been doing it for all my recent recommendations, I am trying to suggest books for which online versions are available. This one is also available as read aloud at Brightly Storytime and you can enjoy listening to it here.
In case your little one enjoys doodling, we did football as one of our prompts in 30 days 30 doodles for kids. You can have a look at the design here and encourage your little one to recreate his/her own version of the same.
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Read Everyday, Doodle Everyday, Have Fun Kiddingly.
Title – Soccer With Mom
Author: Frank Berrios
Illustrator: Jess Golden
Suitable for: Below 6 years age group.
Available on Amazon here.
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