How Sports Costs, Sacrifice, And Self-Care Collide For Athlete Parents

Ever feel like you've become a human ATM for your little rock stars?  Yeah, me too!  This episode is all about the guilt trip we all take – neglecting ourselves for the sake of our kids' athletic dreams.

Forget the trophy case – the real reward is a happy, healthy YOU! Taking care of yourself actually makes you a BETTER parent for your kids. I will be talking about the importance of finding a balance between supporting your athlete's dreams and keeping yourself happy.

What do you do to recharge and fill your cup? Let's build a community of supportive parents who know it's okay to say "I deserve this!"

We dig into the quiet trap many athlete parents fall into: spending and planning for our kids while forgetting our own needs. By naming guilt, choosing a simple mantra, and embracing small, steady treats, we show how parent self-care strengthens athletic success.

• naming the pattern of losing ourselves in their sport
• the rising costs and hidden emotional toll
• spotting guilt and the self-care pause
• adopting the mantra I deserve this
• choosing small, regular treats without remorse
• how parent well-being boosts athlete performance
• long-term identity beyond kids’ sports
• building a balanced, abundance mindset

I would love to hear your side of this. Do you guys go through any of this like compromises in your head? What kind of self-care are you choosing for yourselves?

About This Podcast

It takes a village to raise a pro athlete.

For the first time ever this channel takes you behind the athlete’s ‘unspoken’ road what it really takes to raise athletes.

What to expect when you listen:

Real, Raw Truth

Laughter

The Struggles & Successes

ABOUT YOUR HOST:

Marina Kuperman Villatoro, a mama who is on a mission to help her sons reach their athletic (rock climbing) goals and dreams.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Naming The Parenting Pattern
• 0:22 The Spending Spiral
• 0:46 The Self-Care Pause
• 1:08 A New Mantra In Barcelona
• 1:59 Choosing Yourself Without Guilt
• 2:35 Long Game: Kids’ Futures
• 3:05 Everyday Acts Of Care
• 3:39 Balance, Abundance, And Your Turn

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Are you a parent of an athlete? What is one thing that happens to us? And I have to say it happens across the board. If you are a parent of a climber, motor sport, any extreme sport, or even any mainstream sport, this is what happens to the parents of athletes. We completely lose ourselves in them, right? Everything becomes about them. It is unbelievable the amount of money that is being spent on, for instance, with the climbing, new shoes, new harnesses, new equipment. I'm not even talking about teams, coaching, training programs. How about gym memberships? How about climbing trips? I mean, the list just goes on and on and on. And I don't seem to have that much of a problem. However, one thing that I did notice at one point was that I stopped the self-care for myself. And all of a sudden, whenever it was something special for myself, I don't know, like a facial or a spa day or pretty much anything, I was kind of going through, you know, questionable, should I do this? No. Stop that conversation in your head because we deserve it. We are what's paying for our kids. So guess what? We work hard. We need to be just as happy as they are. So let me tell you this, guys. Right now, my new mantras, I deserve it. We just moved to Barcelona, and the main reason we moved to Spain is for the kids to become more involved in the climbing. Not that Spain is a bad compromise, don't get me wrong. But I don't know if you guys have been to Barcelona. Let me tell you something. Barcelona is full of amazing treats that I want to treat myself. The clothes situation here, the shoes. Oh my goodness, all these different beauty treatments and cool trips. I mean, the list goes on and on for me. And what I've now started as my new mantra is I deserve this. Okay, just the other day I spent over 300 euros on different equipment things, different stuff for the kids to be able to go to this gym or go on that car. I'm like, I deserve this for me. I got myself new shoes. I just went for an awesome spa day. I get beauty treatments done. I get clothes. I go out with my friends. It's, you know, yes, there is that compromise. Well, if I spend money on myself, there's not going to be that much money for the kids and their sports. But things work out, right? Because if you're not taking care of yourself, which is literally the definition of self-care, you start to become an empty vessel, right? You start to get more of a resentment towards whatever. It might not come out automatically that it's towards the sport, you know, but it does. It can come out. So look, guys, you need to start taking care of yourselves, right? Self-care for an athlete parent is crucial because we cannot forget who we are. Eventually, the kids are gonna grow out, they're gonna either become real pros as a pros athletes and they're gonna be sponsored. They're gonna, it's gonna become their career, right? Or they might go in a completely other direction. But the point is we are still here and we still need to be completely taking care of ourselves and be happy with ourselves. And that's one of the things you should not compromise on is the self-care and saying to yourself, hey, I deserve whatever it is that you're interested in. It could be just something as beautifully basic as going out for a cup of coffee in a really cool cafe or going to see a movie on your own or with your friends, whatever your self-care notion is, whatever you find yourself questioning, oh, should I do this? Is it gonna be, you know, yes, you should. Yes, go for it. Remember, this is us as well as them. And if we're happy, the kids are happy. That makes them a happier athlete, that makes them a more successful athlete, that makes us being able to also devote more time, more attention to them as well. So I would love to hear your side of this. Do you guys go through any of this like compromises in your head? What kind of self-care are you choosing for yourselves? This is your time. Don't forget, this is we only have this one life, right? So don't give up your time just because you want to give a little bit extra for your kids. We could all enjoy, there's balance for everyone, and we could all have enough. It's called an abundance mindset, and we need to apply it for everything we do.