Soccer Mom Quotes

Think: who has vans, huh? Soccer moms and serial killers.

I've apparently been the victim of growing up, which apparently happens to all of us at one point or another. It's been going on for quite some time now, without me knowing it. I've found that growing up can mean a lot of things. For me, it doesn't mean I should become somebody completely new and stop loving the things I used to love. It means I've just added more things to my list. Like for example, I'm still beyond obsessed with the winter season and I still start putting up strings of lights in September. I still love sparkles and grocery shopping and really old cats that are only nice to you half the time. I still love writing in my journal and wearing dresses all the time and staring at chandeliers. But some new things I've fallen in love with -- mismatched everything. Mismatched chairs, mismatched colors, mismatched personalities. I love spraying perfumes I used to wear when I was in high school. It brings me back to the days of trying to get a close parking spot at school, trying to get noticed by soccer players, and trying to figure out how to avoid doing or saying anything uncool, and wishing every minute of every day that one day maybe I'd get a chance to win a Grammy. Or something crazy and out of reach like that. ;) I love old buildings with the paint chipping off the walls and my dad's stories about college. I love the freedom of living alone, but I also love things that make me feel seven again. Back then naivety was the norm and skepticism was a foreign language, and I just think every once in a while you need fries and a chocolate milkshake and your mom. I love picking up a cookbook and closing my eyes and opening it to a random page, then attempting to make that recipe. I've loved my fans from the very first day, but they've said things and done things recently that make me feel like they're my friends -- more now than ever before. I'll never go a day without thinking about our memories together.

You’ve probably met moms like that. You say, “Yeah, I scored a goal in the soccer game last night.” And she says, “Oh, that’s nice. All fourteen of my children are the captains of their teams, and they make straight A’s and can play the violin.” And you just want to smack her.

The biologist and intellectual E. O. Wilson was once asked what represented the most hindrance to the development of children; his answer was the soccer mom. He did not use the notion of the Procrustean bed, but he outlined it perfectly. His argument is that they repress children's natural biophilia, their love of living things. But the problem is more general; soccer moms try to eliminate the trial and error, the antifragility, from children's lives, move them away from the ecological and transform them into nerds working on preexisting (soccer-mom-compatible) maps of reality. Good students, but nerds--that is, they are like computers except slower. Further, they are now totally untrained to handle ambiguity. As a child of civil war, I disbelieve in structured learning . . . . Provided we have the right type of rigor, we need randomness, mess, adventures, uncertainty, self-discovery, near-traumatic episodes, all those things that make life worth living, compared to the structured, fake, and ineffective life of an empty-suit CEO with a preset schedule and an alarm clock.

I love it when my justifications for avoiding housework are actually legitimate.

Strawberry milk,” I say, eyeing him as we head toward the counter. “Really.” He turns to me. “Do you have something to say about my snack selections?” “Nope.” I fall into line behind him. “I just didn’t realize you were a middle-school girl going to a slumber party.” “And I,” he says, plunking his strawberry-fest down on the counter, “didn’t realize you were a soccer mom justifying her chocolate craving with the fact that raisins are a fruit.

This is an ode to all of those that have never asked for one. A thank you in words to all of those that do not do what they do so well for the thanking. This is to the mothers. This is to the ones who match our first scream with their loudest scream; who harmonize in our shared pain and joy and terrified wonder when life begins. This is to the mothers. To the ones who stay up late and wake up early and always know the distance between their soft humming song and our tired ears. To the lips that find their way to our foreheads and know, somehow always know, if too much heat is living in our skin. To the hands that spread the jam on the bread and the mesmerizing patient removal of the crust we just cannot stomach. This is to the mothers. To the ones who shout the loudest and fight the hardest and sacrifice the most to keep the smiles glued to our faces and the magic spinning through our days. To the pride they have for us that cannot fit inside after all they have endured. To the leaking of it out their eyes and onto the backs of their hands, to the trails of makeup left behind as they smile through those tears and somehow always manage a laugh. This is to the patience and perseverance and unyielding promise that at any moment they would give up their lives to protect ours. This is to the mothers. To the single mom’s working four jobs to put the cheese in the mac and the apple back into the juice so their children, like birds in a nest, can find food in their mouths and pillows under their heads. To the dreams put on hold and the complete and total rearrangement of all priority. This is to the stay-at-home moms and those that find the energy to go to work every day; to the widows and the happily married. To the young mothers and those that deal with the unexpected announcement of a new arrival far later than they ever anticipated. This is to the mothers. This is to the sack lunches and sleepover parties, to the soccer games and oranges slices at halftime. This is to the hot chocolate after snowy walks and the arguing with the umpire at the little league game. To the frosting ofbirthday cakes and the candles that are always lit on time; to the Easter egg hunts, the slip-n-slides and the iced tea on summer days. This is to the ones that show us the way to finding our own way. To the cutting of the cord, quite literally the first time and even more painfully and metaphorically the second time around. To the mothers who become grandmothers and great-grandmothers and if time is gentle enough, live to see the children of their children have children of their own. To the love. My goodness to the love that never stops and comes from somewhere only mothers have seen and know the secret location of. To the love that grows stronger as their hands grow weaker and the spread of jam becomes slower and the Easter eggs get easier to find and sack lunches no longer need making. This is to the way the tears look falling from the smile lines around their eyes and the mascara that just might always be smeared with the remains of their pride for all they have created. This is to the mothers.

Soccer moms are the enemy of natural history and the full development of a child.

Suddenly I remembered something Daddy told me once when I was angry at my mother. “You know how Mom arranges orange slices on a plate for your soccer team and has activities planned for your birthday parties two months in advance?” he’d asked me. “That’s the way she shows her love, Gracie.” Why was I thinking about that now? I could hear his voice so clearly, like he was talking to me from the backseat of the car. That’s the way she shows her love, Gracie.

Nowdays, Rosie the Rivetere was a former soccer mom who had just opened her own catering business when Last Night came down and her husband and kids were eaten by a parking attendant at the local megamall’s discount- appliance emporium.

But I don’t wanna go to the grocery store!” Her forehead connected with the table’s surface. “It’s a mean nasty place with soccer moms blocking the aisles as they talk to their friends or on their cell phones, kids running and screaming all over the place.AndFred,theproduceguy,fondleshismelons 5o ways to hex your lover 45 while looking at mine. And I’m not allowed to zap any of them!” she moaned. “It’s so not fair!

Pudge/Colonel: "I am sorry that I have not talked to you before. I am not staying for graduation. I leave for Japan tomorrow morning. For a long time, I was mad at you. The way you cut me out of everything hurt me, and so I kept what I knew to myself. But then even after I wasn't mad anymore, I still didn't say anything, and I don't even really know why. Pudge had that kiss, I guess. And I had this secret. You've mostly figured this out, but the truth is that I saw her that night, I'd stayed up late with Lara and some people, and then I was falling asleep and I heard her crying outside my back window. It was like 3:15 that morning, maybe, amd I walked out there and saw her walking through the soccer field. I tried to talk to her, but she was in a hurry. She told me that her mother was dead eight years that day, and that she always put flowers on her mother's grave on the anniversary but she forgot that year. She was out there looking for flowers, but it was too early-too wintry. That's how I knew about January 10. I still have no idea whether it was suicide. She was so sad, and I didn't know what to say or do. I think she counted on me to be the one person who would always say and do the right things to help her, but I couldn"t. I just thought she was looking for flowers. I didn't know she was going to go. She was drunk just trashed drunk, and I really didn't think she would drive or anything. I thought she would just cry herself to sleep and then drive to visit her mom the next day or something. She walked away, and then I heard a car start. I don't know what I was thinking. So I let her go too. And I'm sorry. I know you loved her. It was hard not to." Takumi

I hate people who sneak into first class to use the bathroom. I’m sitting there, in 4F, sipping Cristal and admiring my new line of jewelry for QVC, and suddenly, busting through the curtain and rushing toward the bathroom is some doughy soccer mom holding her crotch and yelling, “Emergency, emergency!” No, it’s not!!! Opening the main hatch and pushing you out at thirty thousand feet for disturbing me is an emergency.

If there was a bad guy we could appeal to the people because, like it or not, we, the huddled masses, want our public figures to be good or bad but rarely allow them to mix the two. Not good an bad. We place people in these categories, which then creates a smooth story-line but also a dichotomy. It's why we like our male movie stars to be either bad boys or heroes, our leading ladies sluts or soccer moms. We like our politicians to be tough guys or saints. What we don't like are any signs of actual humanity, a mixture of the two. So we are left with the question: who is the bad guy? And is the bad guy in control of all that is bad?

I remember trying to explain it to you, and realizing that you had already glazed over and checked out, and I could have said “because one time I saw the face of Jesus in a hot dog and he told me that if I ate him I could have eternal life” and you wouldn’t have noticed. What I want to say to you now, is this: I believe in God now, but not because of Catechism. Not because of what someone told me, or an essay I had to write for credit. I believe in God because I see God every day. I see God in people. I feel God in people. God is not a disinterested Father. God is love. She is air. God is seeing you carry Ralph to the car after your soccer games, in the wrinkling of your baby brother’s nose when you make him smile, in the story of you covering your little sister’s ears so she didn’t hear your mom and dad fighting when you were both so little.

I mean, really. Who needs Pilates when you’ve got a town full of demons?

Working in front of your mom it is like playing soccer in front of your coach

deviant soccer moms in Minnesota.

So,” Mom said. “How did you meet Summer if she wasn’t in any of your classes?” “We sat together at lunch,” I said. I had started kicking a rock between my feet like it was a soccer ball, chasing it back and forth across the sidewalk. “She seems very nice.” “Yeah, she is.” “She’s very pretty,” Mom said. “Yeah, I know,” I answered. “We’re kind of like Beauty and the Beast.” I didn’t wait to see Mom’s reaction. I just started running down the sidewalk after the rock, which I had kicked as hard as I could in front of me.

And in a land accustomed to so much anguish, Chase tried to be careful with words. His soccer moms began assigning nicknames during the first day of official practice: Difom, Kakas, Kochma, and Maldyok, which roughly translated to Deformed, Carcass, Nightmare, and Bad Eye. He made a new rule regarding nicknames.

The biologist and intellectual E. O. Wilson was once asked what represented the most hindrance to the development of children; his answer was the soccer mom….Soccer moms try to eliminate the trial and error from children's lives and transform them into nerds working on preexisting (soccer-mom-compatible) maps of reality. They are good students, but nerds--that is, they are like computers except slower. Further, they are totally untrained to handle ambiguity….Provided we have the right type of rigor, we need randomness, mess, adventures, uncertainty, self-discovery, near-traumatic episodes, all those things that make life worth living.

My meeting with my alimentatore was at noon,

Once upon a time, I’d thought demon-hunting was hard. But that was before I’d become a mom. Trust me. In comparison to parenting, stalking and killing demons is a piece of cake.

opened the vial of holy water and dumped it in with the wipes. I could practically see the ad campaign: Blessed be your baby’s bottom … Now with Aloe!

Bricks could be used to make a billion dollars. It’s easy! All you need to do is fill up a shopping cart full of bricks, park it outside of a grocery store, and wait for the coming hyperinflation. Then, when some soccer mom walks by with a shopping cart full of cash, to purchase a loaf of bread, you trade your tangible assets for her imaginary money and boom! you are now a billionaire.


When I was a kid, summers were the most glorious time of life. Because my parents believed in hands-off, free-range parenting, I’d usually be out the door before ten and wouldn’t return until dinner. There were no cell phones to keep track of me and whenever my mom called a neighbor to ask where I was, the neighbor was often just as clueless as to her own child’s whereabouts. In fact, there was only one rule as far as I could tell: I had to be home at half past five, since my parents liked to eat dinner as a family. I can’t remember exactly how I used to spend those days. I have recollections in snapshot form: building forts or playing king of the hill on the high part of the jungle gym or chasing after a soccer ball while attempting to score. I remember playing in the woods, too. Back then, our home was surrounded by undeveloped land, and my friends and I would have dirt-clod wars or play capture the flag; when we got BB guns, we could spend hours shooting cans and occasionally shooting at each other. I spent hours exploring on my bicycle, and whole weeks would pass where I’d wake every morning with nothing scheduled at all. Of course, there were kids in the neighborhood who didn’t lead that sort of carefree existence. They would head off to camp or participate in summer leagues for various sports, but back then, kids like that were the minority. These days, kids are scheduled from morning to night because parents have demanded it, and London has been no exception. But how did it happen? And why? What changed the outlook of parents in my generation? Peer pressure? Living vicariously through a child’s success? Résumé building for college? Or was it simply fear that if their kids were allowed to discover the world on their own, nothing good would come of it? I don’t know. I am, however, of the opinion that something has been lost in the process: the simple joy of waking in the morning and having nothing whatsoever to do.

Humans interpret. Like fish swim and birds fly, we interpret. We have always done so. We were created as interpreters. We interpret God, gardens, snakes, light, darkness, Mom’s voice, Dad’s voice, colours, babysitters, nurseries, spinach, commandments, events, sacrifices, poems, songs, books, newspapers, the sports newscaster, soccer games, speeches, scenery, sunrises, sunsets, food, sermons, allegories, street lights, people, cursing, a kiss, the wink of an eye, cancer, and death (to name just a few). We are homo interpretum as much as we are homo sapiens.

How is she already asleep?” Sully whispers. “At home she stays up until like two a.m.” “She probably was tired,” Church whispers back. “What, from climbing a hill?” Church doesn’t respond. They get into their sleeping bags and whisper for half an hour about the outdoor soccer season about to start. I hadn’t even realized the indoor season was over—Mom and Dad just told me when I needed to take them to practice or pick them up. I didn’t know how they’d done. Were there any tournaments? Trophies? After a long stretch of silence, Sully says, “So did you really try out for the spring musical?” Church doesn’t respond for a second. “Yes. Why?” “Just wondering. Why didn’t you tell me?” “Because you would have made it about Macy Garrison.” “It—it’s not?” “No.” “Oh. But you’re not going to try out forchoir?” “Maybe.” “Why?” Just the smallest bit of mocking enters Sully’s tone. “Because I like it,” Church snaps back. “We don’t have to do all the same things. Try out for mathletes or something. You like math. You’d be good at it.” “Mathletes is for nerds.” “Sull, there’s something you should know.” “Don’t say it.” “You are a nerd.” “I’m not a nerd. Eliza’s a nerd.” “Actually, I think Eliza’s a geek. I’ve seen her grades. Compared to us, she’s horrible at school.” “You’re a nerd for knowing the difference.” “That’s fine.” Sully makes no sound, but I can feel him fuming in the darkness. I didn’t know Church could get under Sully’s skin so easily. I didn’t know Sully liked math. I didn’t know either of them were that good at school. I didn’t know Church already knew he was good at singing . . . or that he was interested in musical theater. I’ve been living with them their whole lives, but until right now, they’ve felt like strangers

The biologist and intellectual E. O. Wilson was once asked what represented the most hindrance to the development of children; his answer was the soccer mom [helicopter parent]….They try to eliminate the trial and error from children's lives and transform them into nerds working on preexisting (parent-compatible) maps of reality. They are good students, but nerds--that is, they are like computers, except slower. Further, they are totally untrained to handle ambiguity….Provided we have the right type of rigor, we need randomness, mess, adventures, uncertainty, self-discovery, near-traumatic episodes, all those things that make life worth living.

Every new generation of women, it seems, feminist and housewife alike, is encouraged by popular culture to disavow its forebears and rebrand itself as an all-new, never-before-seen generational phenomenon, completely different in every way from what came before. The 'housewives' of the 1970s gave way to the Martha Stewart 'homemakers' of the 1980s, then the 'soccer moms' of the 1990s, then the stay-at-home moms of the 2000s. Next may come the homeschooling homesteaders of the impending post-apocalypse - who knows? What's significant is that the cycle of idealization, devaluation, and revision gives an appearance of progress, of superficial change, that distracts us from the big picture.

She had read articles over the years about a man's supposed biological craving for young women: it was all about primeval procreation, in theory, the need to plant seed in fertile soil. Maybe. ... She thought of a line from Nabokov: "Because you took advantage of my disadvantage." Lolita. In this case, however, Kristin felt that she was at the disadvantage - not the young thing. The truth was, she feared, all men were Humbert Humbert. Maybe they weren't pedophiles lusting after twelve-year-olds, but didn't Lolita look old for her age? Older, anyway? Sure, there were MILFs in porn, but Kristin had a feeling that considerably more men wanted their porn stars to be students at Duke University than moms from the bleachers at a middle-school soccer game.

We're in her bedroom,and she's helping me write an essay about my guniea pig for French class. She's wearing soccer shorts with a cashmere sweater, and even though it's silly-looking, it's endearingly Meredith-appropriate. She's also doing crunches. For fun. "Good,but that's present tense," she says. "You aren't feeding Captain Jack carrot sticks right now." "Oh. Right." I jot something down, but I'm not thinking about verbs. I'm trying to figure out how to casually bring up Etienne. "Read it to me again. Ooo,and do your funny voice! That faux-French one your ordered cafe creme in the other day, at that new place with St. Clair." My bad French accent wasn't on purpose, but I jump on the opening. "You know, there's something,um,I've been wondering." I'm conscious of the illuminated sign above my head, flashing the obvious-I! LOVE! ETIENNE!-but push ahead anyway. "Why are he and Ellie still together? I mean they hardly see each other anymore. Right?" Mer pauses, mid-crunch,and...I'm caught. She knows I'm in love with him, too. But then I see her struggling to reply, and I realize she's as trapped in the drama as I am. She didn't even notice my odd tone of voice. "Yeah." She lowers herself slwoly back to the floor. "But it's not that simple. They've been together forever. They're practically an old married couple. And besides,they're both really...cautious." "Cautious?" "Yeah.You know.St. Clair doesn't rock the boat. And Ellie's the same way. It took her ages to choose a university, and then she still picked one that's only a few neighborhoods away. I mean, Parsons is a prestigious school and everything,but she chose it because it was familiar.And now with St. Clair's mom,I think he's afraid to lose anyone else.Meanwhile,she's not gonna break up with him,not while his mom has cancer. Even if it isn't a healthy relationship anymore." I click the clicky-button on top of my pen. Clickclickclickclick. "So you think they're unhappy?" She sighs. "Not unhappy,but...not happy either. Happy enough,I guess. Does that make sense?" And it does.Which I hate. Clickclickclickclick. It means I can't say anything to him, because I'd be risking our friendship. I have to keep acting like nothing has changed,that I don't feel anything ore for him than I feel for Josh.

From gun shows, where they openly promote their product by imploring customers to buy “while you still can,” to homegrown militias who apparently believe in their blessed little hearts that they, a group of overweight forty-and fifty-year-old men who have never even had Boy Scout–level training and can’t jog a mile, are the protectors of America, the Second Amendment has by far got to be the most countercultured of all the amendments. Obviously, there are groups that take the First Amendment very seriously, but it’s tough to imagine a group of soccer moms getting together on the weekends to discuss “tactics” on how to keep free speech alive and comparing notes on their sweet new semiautomatic megaphones they use to proudly shout about their rights at “free speech shows.

Alexis and I got dressed in changing rooms next to each other and were chatting through the openings at the top of the dividers. “Wait till you see my new suit!” she said. “It’s so cute!” “Me too! My mom brought it home as a surprise!” We came out and took one look at each other and started laughing our heads off. We had on the exact same bathing suit! They were tankinis, navy blue with white piping and a cool yellow lightning bolt down either side. Alexis is kind of muscular from soccer, and I’m kind of thin (I play the flute, and that doesn’t exactly build muscles!) so the suit fit us way differently. We couldn’t stop giggling though. We looked like total dork twins! I knew right then this summer was going to be silly, superfun, and totally awesome.

...it ends with him wondering if maybe time really is going to loop back upon itself after all, except in this rendering, he will have Julia and Harold as parents from the beginning, and who knows what he will be, only that he will be better, that he will be healthier, that he will be kinder, that he won’t feel the need to struggle so hard against his own life. He has a vision of himself as a fifteen-year-old, running into the house in Cambridge, shouting words—“Mom! Dad!”—he has never said before, and although he can’t imagine what would have made this dream self so excited (for all his study of normal children, their interests and behaviors, he knows few specifics), he understands that he is happy. Maybe he is wearing a soccer uniform, his arms and legs bare; maybe he is accompanied by a friend, by a girlfriend. He has probably never had sex before; he is probably trying at every opportunity to do so. He would think sometimes of who he would be as an adult, but it would never occur to him that he might not have someone to love, sex, his own feet running across a field of grass as soft as carpet. All those hours, all those hours he has spent cutting, and hiding the cutting, and beating back his memories, what would he do instead with all those hours? He would be a better person, he knows. He would be a more loving one. But maybe, he thinks, maybe it isn’t too late. Maybe he can pretend one more time, and this last bout of pretending will change things for him, will make him into the person he might have been. He is fifty-one; he is old. But maybe he still has time. Maybe he can still be repaired.

It’s not like I wasn’t busy. I was an officer in good standing of my kids’ PTA. I owned a car that put my comfort ahead of the health and future of the planet. I had an IRA and a 401(k) and I went on vacations and swam with dolphins and taught my kids to ski. I contributed to the school’s annual fund. I flossed twice a day; I saw a dentist twice a year. I got Pap smears and had my moles checked. I read books about oppressed minorities with my book club. I did physical therapy for an old knee injury, forgoing the other things I’d like to do to ensure I didn’t end up with a repeat injury. I made breakfast. I went on endless moms’ nights out, where I put on tight jeans and trendy blouses and high heels like it mattered and went to the restaurant that was right next to the restaurant we went to with our families. (There were no dads’ nights out for my husband, because the supposition was that the men got to live life all the time, whereas we were caged animals who were sometimes allowed to prowl our local town bar and drink the blood of the free people.) I took polls on whether the Y or the JCC had better swimming lessons. I signed up for soccer leagues in time for the season cutoff, which was months before you’d even think of enrolling a child in soccer, and then organized their attendant carpools. I planned playdates and barbecues and pediatric dental checkups and adult dental checkups and plain old internists and plain old pediatricians and hair salon treatments and educational testing and cleats-buying and art class attendance and pediatric ophthalmologist and adult ophthalmologist and now, suddenly, mammograms. I made lunch. I made dinner. I made breakfast. I made lunch. I made dinner. I made breakfast. I made lunch. I made dinner.

Killer yuppies in a soccer-mom car. It did have that certain je ne said quois.

My parents and my grandfather on my mom's side would travel the earth. They went to Australia and China, and they went to probably every soccer game I ever played.

We made it, guys” Nathan whispers, turning back to us. The vault wasn’t very big; it probably cannot hold more than 50,000 dollars. “Grab the bags and start packing it in. Radio Tommy we are in; he can get ready to move. Tell limp we’re ready; be on the watch, with engine on.” “I heard that”, we hear over our earpieces. It’s Adrian. “Hehe, ya, I know.” We put the money in the bags and get to the door. We turn off the alarm for 60 more seconds; enough for all of us to get away and take the camera footage with us. We run to the street and jump in the dark green van that’s waiting at the corner of 5th with 10th. Adrian drives calmly, just like any soccer mom on her way to pick up her kids

That’s the bittersweet part of being a mom. You slather on all that love and attention so that your kids will grow up strong, confident, and self-sufficient. And if you’ve done your job right, you’ve raised grown-ups who can go off and manage just fine without you.

Soccer Mom English is not my first language. For years I thought a soccer mom was a woman beaten by her husband ~ just with children. A nice woman explained to me I was thinking about a battered wife. I said, 'You mean he dips her in flour before he slaps her? Then she slapped me. Oy, English.

My dad who has a voice so loud I've nicknamed him Mr. Boom Boom is on his way home. Mom says when he gets home, we're all going to pick up a surprise dad has organized. Dad's previous surprises have included me joining a soccer team and doing a two-day circus trapeze course. You can understand why I feel a little nervous.

I am a boy mom, but I am raising two very different boys. So what does #lifewithboys mean in my house? Mud. Blood. ER visits and black eyes. “He threw a rock at me!” but also, “Let’s play a math game on the computer!” Holes in the knees of brand-new pants. Dirty cleats and stinky jock-straps. Marathon games of Monopoly, chess, and Sudoku. Reading Harry Potter five times. Yelling “No throwing baseballs in the house!” Science camp by day and soccer practice by night. Messy hair and dirty fingernails. Overdue library books. Tears. Fears. And love. We may have holes in the walls and holes in our pants, but I wouldn’t trade this life. It’s exhaustingly beautiful and never boring. Someday, my youngest child may have a boy just like him, and when he throws a baseball through the living room window, I’ll tell my son that it’s okay. He’s just a little boy.

Let’s put it all together by crafting a one-liner for soccer moms to see how powerful a one-liner actually is.         •  The Character: Moms         •  The Problem: Busy schedules         •  The Plan: Short, meaningful workouts         •  The Success: Health and renewed energy         •  “We provide busy moms with a short, meaningful workout they can use to stay healthy and have renewed energy.

My clothes are burned, but wearable, if you ignore the burning garbage smell. I have on an ancient Germs T-shirt that my girlfriend lifted from a West Hollywood vintage shop for me, worn black jeans with holes in the knees, a pair of ancient engineer boots, and a battered leather motorcycle jacket, strategic points of which are held together with black gaffer’s tape. The heel of my right boot is loose from when I’d kicked the living Jesus out of some carjacking piece of shit after he dragged some screaming soccer mom to the pavement at a stoplight. I hate cops and I fucking hate goody-goody hero types, but there is some shit I will not put up with if it happens in front of me

So what was Jonah like before high school? As a kid?” “As a kid?” Hallelujah brings up the picture in her mind. “He was . . . sweet, I guess. Dorky. He’d wear these outfits his mom picked out—pleated khaki pants and polo shirts, with his hair slicked down with gel. And he would get really enthusiastic about things. Too enthusiastic. He went through this cowboy phase where he wore a cowboy hat and boots to school every day. Didn’t care what anyone thought.” The mental image makes her smile. “And he and Luke were best friends?” “Starting in middle school, yeah. They played soccer together.” “Huh.” Rachel pauses. “So when did Jonah get cute?” “He was still pretty short in middle school. And skinny. But he did start dressing better.” “No more pleated khakis?” “No more pleated khakis. And then the summer before ninth grade, he had this growth spurt. And he started to, uh, fill out. So I guess ninth grade is when I noticed . . .” Hallelujah fades off. “This is embarrassing.” “No, it’s not. This is what girls talk about.” Rachel grins. “Besides. I wanted to see if you were paying as close attention to him as he was to you.” “I didn’t realize I was. We were just friends.” “You can be friends and still objectively notice someone’s cuteness.

A teenage girl, brutally murdered and left in a trash dumpster; a young man, killed in a firebombing attack; a soccer mom, shot in the living room of her home; vicious thugs whose job is to protect a suspected criminal. Just another week on rotation for LAPD detective Joel Jovanic...until he uncovers a connection between the disturbing series of vicious crimes and Annabelle Giordano, who is in the temporary custody of his soulmate, Claudia Rose.

Pumpkin Heads to all come to the soccer field?” Alex asked. “Somebody is going to have to go throughout town, get their attention and lure them back here,” Steve said. I thought about Old Man Jenkins and his Zombie Horse, Ed. But since Mr. Jenkins was only half the Zombie he used to be, I realized that it was going to be up to me. “I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll just ride Ed, the Zombie horse, throughout town and get the Pumpkin Heads to chase me back here.” “Way to go, Zombie!” Steve said. “That settles it. Alex, you and Ms. Ursula get the potion to the school’s water supply that’s connected to the sprinkler system. The guys and I will keep the rest of the Pumpkin Heads busy on the soccer field. Right, guys?” “Gulp! Uh, yeah sure…” the guys said. “Except you, Creepy, you can sit this one out,” Steve said. I told my Mom and Dad what I had to do. They didn’t like it, but they knew it was the only way to help save everybody. I stooped down and asked Old Man Jenkins if I could borrow Ed for one last ride. “You’re

We are always “shocked” when we hear about violence in the suburbs, as though a well-watered lawn, a split-level construction, Little League and soccer moms, piano lessons, Four Squares courts, and parent-teacher conferences, all worked as some sort of wolfsbane, warding off evil. If the Ghost and McGuane grew up just nine miles from Livingston—again, that was how far the heart of Newark was—no one would be “stunned” and “dismayed” by what they’d become.

MEGAN PIERCE WAS LIVING THE ultimate soccer-mom fantasy and hating it. She closed the Sub-Zero fridge and looked at her two children through the bay windows off the breakfast nook. The windows offered up “essential morning light.” That was how the architect had put it. The newly renovated kitchen also had a Viking stove, Miele appliances, a marble island in the middle, and excellent flow to the family-cum-theater room with the big-screen TV, recliners with cup holders, and enough sound speakers to stage a Who concert. Out

That’s pretty much our story: Melanie and Scarlett, Annie Oakley and Calamity Jane, the soccer moms and the vampire slayers. All of them are more complicated than they let on.

When she wasn’t beating enemy agents senseless, Erica’s mother was the least spylike person I could possibly imagine. Instead, she came across as the world’s most chipper and enthusiastic soccer mom.

My Sweet Vivian, I’m so glad you decided on guitar, because you really suck at soccer. Love, Mom

And they were in love in spite of the ban on reading-even better. They were in love in spite of Mom and Dad, math homework, a French essay, a bedroom that needed tidying. They were too in love to go down for supper, they loved each other more than desert. They were too heads over heels to join in the soccer game or go mushroom picking. They had chosen each other and preferred each other to anyone else. My God, how beautiful love is. And how short that novel was.

Instead of doom and gloom, Dad seems...transformed. He has a smile on his face, eyes closed. Water is pouring out of the shower spigot, down his face, over his eyes, nose, and mouth. Did you actually ride a bike? Mom asks. No, he says. I was FLYING. And no matter how mad Mom is, I'm suddenly triumphant too, that I could make him feel that way. Like we can really do anything together. Even if it takes ten thousand tries.

I kneel by my side of the bed to pray, something I've only ever done because Mom and Dad told me to. But today I decide on my own. After all, Messi's a believer too. I've seen him do it a hundred times - pointing at the sky when he scores, like he's acknowledging something or someone up there who holds pieces of his destiny. Destiny. It does seem like destiny flies in the face of ten thousand hours and actually earning a starting position. But even I have to admit - after all the fighting, after all the hard work - there's a piece of me that's looking for a miracle. So I look up and put my hands together....please.

Poor Mom. Doesn't she know that Dad's unbeatable too?

I sat on the couch, alone. Like a stone. Because you know what I heard Mom say? He will PROBABLY pass away. PROBABLY. So...there was a chance. A chance he could live. I would make sure he got that chance.

Mom said we have to be careful not to get our hopes up too much. Why not? I said. Isn't that what hope is for?

I’m early to practice because I drive with Coach, who, like every soccer season, transforms into this thing where she’s no longer my mother. She’s harder, with a look in her eyes I don’t dare cross, a look that says LUNGES, SQUATS, AND SPRINTS UNTIL YOU DIE! It’s like having the Incredible Hulk for a mom.

Shortly after Range came out, Ruth Brennan Morrey—a former college soccer co-captain and pro triathlete, Olympic Trials marathon qualifier, and psychology PhD—tagged me in an apt tweet: “Listening to @DavidEpstein ‘Range’ in the car with 12 year old daughter. ‘Mom, why do we make “What I want to be when I grow up” signs on the first day of school? We should make “Top 5 things I want to learn about this year” signs.’ Smart cookie. :-)” I think I’ll borrow the twelve-year-old’s idea.

An athleisure wearing, messy bun donning, SUV driving soccer mom of two is what…? It’s the truth. Judge away and click your tongue if you must.

I learned not to need you a long time ago, right around the time I realized that other mothers didn’t leave. That other mothers came to soccer games and helped their daughters get ready for dances. Other moms picked out costumes for Halloween and bought pints of ice cream for broken teenage hearts. I may have needed you at one point, but it passed.

Nothing. Soccer could be fun, unless you like scoring, or knowing how much time is left in the game, and if you don’t care about having to say words like ‘nil.’ Let’s talk to Mom about it.” “So you’re not mad?” he asks. “Of course not,” I say, not mentioning that I’m pained, crushed, and horrified.

Connor saw immediately what Davey wanted them to see. It sent an electric jolt through his body. “Three bite marks,” Davey said, pointing to each one with a gloved finger. “One on the anterior aspect of the left shoulder, one on the lower, outer quadrant of the right breast, and one to the anterior of the right hip. From what I can tell, they are about three to four days old. I’ve already done the comparison to the four Soccer Mom Strangler victims. They are the same.” Connor had never known his colleagues to be rendered speechless, but even he could think of nothing to say. Davey clapped his hands in the air, then waved in each one of their faces. “Did you hear me, Detectives? Leah Holloway has bite marks on her body that match those of the Soccer Mom Strangler.

Caroline has romanticized the memories of her father because he’s gone. But Hollis was the one who showed up with Caroline’s forgotten flute case; Hollis was the one with a regular spot at Sprague Fields during Caroline’s soccer games. Hollis took Caroline on her college visits and spent six hours at Copley Place helping Caroline shop for a cotillion dress. Hollis kept up with the friend drama, the boy drama, the academic drama. Hollis was her every day. Hollis was her unconditional. How had Hollis known how to be a mom? Thinking about it now, Caroline finds it sort of amazing.

Gently, he pulled the cover away from Leah’s body, folding it down, stopping just above her pubic mound. Her eyes were closed, her mouth slightly open. Aside from the coroner’s massive Y-shaped incision on her torso and the waxy paleness of her skin, she might only have been sleeping. Her large breasts fell to each side. Connor saw immediately what Davey wanted them to see. It sent an electric jolt through his body. “Three bite marks,” Davey said, pointing to each one with a gloved finger. “One on the anterior aspect of the left shoulder, one on the lower, outer quadrant of the right breast, and one to the anterior of the right hip. From what I can tell, they are about three to four days old. I’ve already done the comparison to the four Soccer Mom Strangler victims. They are the same.” Connor had never known his colleagues to be rendered speechless, but even he could think of nothing to say. Davey clapped his hands in the air, then waved in each one of their faces. “Did you hear me, Detectives? Leah Holloway has bite marks on her body that match those of the Soccer Mom Strangler.

Agent Bishop, the profiler,” Connor explained for Davey’s benefit, “said that victimology is really important in cases like these. She said without realizing it, the victims may have escalated him by pleading for their lives for the sake of their children. Maybe Holloway didn’t fight back. Maybe she didn’t say a damn thing, just let him rape her, in hopes that submitting would save her.” Jade’s brow furrowed. “That’s a stretch. She’s raped by the Soccer Mom Strangler and doesn’t report it? Doesn’t tell anyone?” “It’s not that easy, Jade,” Connor said quietly, thinking about Claire. “It’s not that easy to report it.

From stockbrokers to soccer moms, there are twelve minds on the jury and they’ve all been marinated in different life experiences. You have to tell them all the same story. And you only get one chance. That’s the trick. Twelve minds, one story. It’s got to be a story that speaks to each of them.

With thousands upon thousands of offspring, I assumed the queen ant would be the ultimate soccer mom.

soccer moms try to eliminate the trial and error, the antifragility, from children’s lives,

I was at one of Tish’s soccer games, and there was a girl on the other team who was just rubbing me the wrong way. I could tell by the sideline body language and eye rolling that she was also rubbing several of my soccer-mom friends the wrong way. I watched her carefully, trying to figure out why this girl was activating us. I noticed that she walked with her head held high and with a bit of a swagger. She was good, and she knew it. She went in for the ball often and hard, like a girl who knows her own strength and talent. She smiled the whole time, like all of this was easy for her, like she was having the time of her life. All of this just annoyed the hell out of me. She was twelve.

So often, though, we base the decisions for our life – Should I go to law school? Should I cut my hair short? Should I take Job A or Job B? – on what we think other people will say, want, or judge. We are so scared of others' opinions that some of us spend our whole lives trying to bend ourselves to other people's wills. Our mom wanted us to skip medical school to get married, so we did. Our husband wanted us to stay home with the kids, so we did. The kids wanted us to be at every soccer game, every play rehearsal, every playdate, so we did. The other moms wanted us to fit in and look a certain way, so we did. It can get so bad that we don't even recognize ourselves anymore. What happened to the little girl who wanted to fly planes like Amelia Earhart, or be a Supreme Court Justice, or join the circus? She became buried under a landslide of other people's expectations, opinions, and judgments. It's time to dig her out.

Trent pumped his arm as if he'd just hit the jackpot. "Thank God. If I had to hear about one more incident with that squirrel-shifter, I was going to shoot myself." "Squirrel-shifter? Are you fucking kidding me?" Jace raised an eyebrow in a look that said, Do I even want to know? "Some half squirrel, half man has been showing up naked in people's backyards out in the suburbs. Soccer moms tend to be a little alarmed when a nude man nibbling on acorns is perched near their child's window. I'm not sure whether he's a shifter who's unable to hold his animal form for long or just a garden variety nut.

to hug Toni Burgess and Sandy Wilson, the Devil Girlz we’d met in Taylor Creek, Oregon. Correction: former Devil Girlz. There was no sign of leather. Instead Toni was in a dress and had soccer-mom hair, and she said she was going back to teaching school. Sandy just looked sweet. More people were introduced: lawyers for both sides, and His Honor Marlon Sykes, a judge

Many of us parents, particularly us moms, are “doing parenting” the way we did college, perhaps grad school, and, if we chose it, the world of work, that is, throwing ourselves at it full bore, running the PTA or soccer snack schedule the way we ran our student groups or corporate meetings, leaning in to our kids’ lives as if they are the metrics and deliverables of our little private corporation. How our kids look, what they eat, how they dress, what activities they pursue, what they achieve have become reflections of us. Of how we see ourselves. Like their life is our accomplishment. Like their failures are our fault. Many

Cops are generally color-blind when it comes to brown cars, and this Subaru is too boring for even a soccer mom. It looks like it was made for people into competitive tire filling.

Eat the Rich: A Recipe Preheat the oven to 451 degrees, the temperature at which money burns. Next, take three SUV’s, crack them in two and remove the whites. Then mix together in a bowl with two self-satisfied peels of laughter from a soccer mom. Bake for a generation. Garnishing options: Diced Debutante Julienned CEO Dash of Trustafarian Ladle of Landlord

Strawberry milk,” I say, eyeing him as we head toward the counter. “Really.” He turns to me. “Do you have something to say about my snack selections?” “Nope.” I fall into line behind him. “I just didn’t realize you were a middle-school girl going to a slumber party.” “And I,” he says, plunking his strawberry-fest down on the counter, “didn’t realize you were a soccer mom justifying her chocolate craving with the fact that raisins are a fruit.

Once Akash set me up with invisibility and taught me some basic killing skills, I deleted StealthViper999—who, I had to admit, was neither stealthy nor viper-like—and created a new avatar, who I called InvisibleDeath. For obvious reasons. At this point, it was Friday afternoon, and most weekends, Reese spends every waking minute (when he’s not at a soccer game) on MetaWorld. So I was all amped up to get my revenge ASAP. But that particular Friday, Reese got a 57 on his math test. Even by my brother’s incredibly low standards, it was such a bad grade that Ms. Santiago made him take the test home to get it signed by a parent. REESE I don’t know what the big deal was. A 57’s still “Very Good.” CLAUDIA I should explain about the Culvert Prep grading system. A few years ago, a bunch of parents complained that letter grades were hurting their kids’ self-esteem. So now, instead of A, B, C, D, and F, our grading scale is “Amazing,” “Spectacular,” “Excellent,” “Very Good,” and “Okay.” Which is totally stupid. Because nothing changed except the names, so if you get a “Very Good” on your report card, your parents have to come in for a special conference with your teacher. And if you get more than one “Okay,” they basically tell you to start looking for another school. Also, I know which parents did the complaining—and I don’t want to be catty or name names, but I can tell you the one thing their kids ABSOLUTELY DO NOT NEED is more self-esteem. Anyway, when Reese brought home his 57 that Friday, Mom and Dad reacted in their usual way, which

Dear …, I’m writing as a Canadian woman and a member of one of the so-called “visible” or “ethnic” minorities to protest the exclusionary—racist and sexist—practices of Canadian publishers. Why racist? Because they discriminate against white writers. Why sexist? Because they discriminate against male writers. I feel quite perturbed about Penguin Canada’s submission policy which solicits exclusively unagented LGBTQIA2S+ and BIPOC writers (as well as those from "traditionally underrepresented” communities). This is publishing madness that has gone too far in the name of diversity. If publishing exclusively white male writers (and that has never been the case) is a clearcut wrong, two wrongs do not make a right. Oddly enough, only Penguin Canada has this bizarre exclusionary policy. Penguin Australia and Penguin New Zealand, in contrast, welcome submissions from writers of all backgrounds. Penguin UK Merky Books New Writers’ Prize aims to discover new UK voices and writers regardless of race, creed, or colour. Could this be the reason why Canada lags so far behind UK and arguably even Australia/NZ in reputation in the literary and publishing worlds? You may say, oh, look at the history, white male writers have traditionally dominated the publishing field. But why should white male writers TODAY be discriminated against in order to address the inequities of the past? That's the crux of the problem created by Penguin Canada’s woke madness. So, let’s look at the books published recently. Are white males still dominating the field? The truth of the matter is, they don’t, with a whopping 73% of editors being female (Editor Demographics in the United States, 2023). The quality of books isn’t decided by a writer’s colour or gender. It’s decided by the story and writers’ skills in presenting that story. As an avid lifelong reader of books in 3 languages (one of them English), I love books. At times I can’t even remember a writer’s name, far less their skin colour or sexual orientation, but I DO remember the story. Yet today’s exclusionary publishing policies at Penguin Canada imply that only people of colour have the chops to write about people of colour (ditto for any social subgroup you choose). This not only suffocates the world of fiction writing but, as a logical corollary, limits writing about 59-year-old, ethnically Chinese, twice-divorced soccer moms with 2 mortgages SOLELY to 59-year-old, ethnically Chinese, twice-divorced soccer moms with 2 mortgages. For the record, I—and thousands of others, judging by mountains of internet posts—am interested in how men write about women, how white writers write about other races, how old men write about youth—and of course vice versa. I’m interested in how writers see the world regardless of their sexual orientation. Paying the piper to play only a single +ALPHABETSOUP tune, we get to hear only that single tune, reducing the depth of human experience to only what passes through that one artificially imposed filter. One last example: Simon & Schuster (US) has books like us first novel contest to discover new local writers regardless of who they are. Only in Canada’s Orwellian publishing world some writers are more equal than others. Shame on my country. Let the books speak for themselves!!

Dear …, I’m writing as a Canadian woman and a member of one of the so-called “visible” or “ethnic” minorities to protest the exclusionary—racist and sexist—practices of Canadian publishers. Why racist? Because they discriminate against white writers. Why sexist? Because they discriminate against male writers. I feel quite perturbed about Penguin Canada’s submission policy which solicits exclusively unagented LGBTQIA2S+ and BIPOC writers (as well as those from "traditionally underrepresented” communities). This is publishing madness that has gone too far in the name of diversity. If publishing exclusively white male writers (and that has never been the case) is a clearcut wrong, two wrongs do not make a right. Oddly enough, only Penguin Canada has this bizarre exclusionary policy. Penguin Australia and Penguin New Zealand, in contrast, welcome submissions from writers of all backgrounds. Penguin UK Merky Books New Writers’ Prize aims to discover new UK voices and writers regardless of race, creed, or colour. Could this be the reason why Canada lags so far behind UK and arguably even Australia/NZ in reputation in the literary and publishing worlds? You may say, oh, look at the history, white male writers have traditionally dominated the publishing field. But why should white male writers TODAY be discriminated against in order to address the inequities of the past? That's the crux of the problem created by Penguin Canada’s woke madness. So, let’s look at the books published recently. Are white males still dominating the field? The truth of the matter is, they don’t, with a whopping 73% of editors being female (Editor Demographics in the United States, 2023). The quality of books isn’t decided by a writer’s colour or gender. It’s decided by the story and writers’ skills in presenting that story. As an avid lifelong reader of books in 3 languages (one of them English), I love books. At times I can’t even remember a writer’s name, far less their skin colour or sexual orientation, but I DO remember the story. Yet today’s exclusionary publishing policies at Penguin Canada imply that only people of colour have the chops to write about people of colour (ditto for any social subgroup you choose). This not only suffocates the world of fiction writing but, as a logical corollary, limits writing about 59-year-old, ethnically Chinese, twice-divorced soccer moms with 2 mortgages SOLELY to 59-year-old, ethnically Chinese, twice-divorced soccer moms with 2 mortgages. For the record, I—and thousands of others, judging by mountains of internet posts—am interested in how men write about women, how white writers write about other races, how old men write about youth—and of course vice versa. I’m interested in how writers see the world regardless of their sexual orientation. Paying the piper to play only a single +ALPHABETSOUP tune, we get to hear only that single tune, reducing the depth of human experience to only what passes through that one artificially imposed filter. One last example: Simon & Schuster (US) has books like us first novel contest to discover new local writers regardless of who they are. Only in Canada’s Orwellian publishing world some writers are more equal than others. Shame on my country. Let the books speak for themselves!!

Results of a good meeting: Facts — concrete, specific facts about what they do and why they do it (as opposed to the bad data of compliments, fluff, and opinions) Commitment — They are showing they’re serious by giving up something they value such as meaningful amounts of time, reputation risk, or money Advancement — They are moving to the next step of your real-world funnel and getting closer to a sale Signs you’re just going through the motions: You’re talking more than they are They are complimenting you or your idea You told them about your idea and don’t have next steps You don’t have notes You haven’t looked through your notes with your team You got an unexpected answer and it didn’t change your idea You weren’t scared of any of the questions you asked You aren’t sure which big question you’re trying to answer You aren’t sure why you’re having the meeting Writing it down — signal symbols: :)Excited :( Angry :|Embarrassed ☇ Pain or problem (symbol is a lightning bolt) ⨅ Goal or job-to-be-done (symbol is a soccer/football goal) ☐ Obstacle ⤴Workaround ^Background or context (symbol is a distant mountain) ☑ Feature request or purchasing criteria ＄Money or budgets or purchasing process ♀ Mentioned a specific person or company ☆ Follow-up task Signs you aren’t pushing for commitment and advancement: A pipeline of zombie leads Ending product meetings with a compliment Ending product meetings with no clear next steps Meetings which “went well” They haven’t given up anything of value Asking for and framing the meeting: Vision — half-sentence of how you’re making the world better Framing — where you’re at and what you’re looking for Weakness — where you’re stuck and how you can be helped Pedestal — show that they, in particular, can provide that help Ask — ask for help The big prep question: “What do we want to learn from these guys?