What the Seattle Seahawks Can Add to Your Parenting Playbook

Becoming a “12th Mom”

It’s a battle of inches and split-second decisions. Of on-the-fly adjustments, challenging matchups, bounce backs, and hard-fought victory. No, I’m not talking about the emotional roller coaster of watching the Seahawks beat the 49ers in week 11 this season. I’m talking about parenting.

I became a co-parent when my son was 7 years old, so I had to play a lot of catch-up. It was like I’d been traded to a new team and had to learn a three-inch-thick playbook overnight. It only seemed natural that I looked to a world I know well — football — for help.

It turns out that shepherding a child through childhood and adolescence has a lot in common with football — it requires research and planning, tests your mental fortitude, and even if your Sunday is more about tackling chores and soccer game carpools than 220-pound running backs, weekends can leave you feeling like you’ve been hit by a train.

But even with an ankle sprain or two (physical or emotional), the moments of adversity make the moments of triumph that much sweeter. So, after taking in all the highs and the lows (mostly lows) of the Hawks’ 2024–25 season, here are six lessons I hope will empower and inspire you to grab your proverbial clipboard, embrace your own inner coach, and lead your home team to success without throwing in the towel.

Tips for tackling parenting as a team sport

1. Remember that no one wins (or loses) alone

It’s said that the quarterback gets all of the credit, and all of the blame. That certainly seems accurate when reflecting on this season’s week-to-week dialog around whether Geno Smith is great (he ranked fifth in NFL passing statistics as of week 17), terrible (only Kirk Cousins of the Atlanta Falcons had more interceptions through week 17), or simply “mid,” as the kids say. At times miraculous, at others catastrophic, it’s easy to point to the QB as the key to a team’s success or failure, but at any given time a football team has 11 players on the field (in the Seahawks’ case, add an earth-shaking 12th Man army in the stands), and every single one has an important role to play.

As parents, it’s easy to feel like we’re siloed in the struggle. My wife and I sometimes feel like we’re on an island navigating the daunting perils of teenage-hood while most of our friends and siblings are having babies, or still have children in elementary school.

Even though many of our peers are at a different stage of their parenting journey, it’s been vital for us to remember that everyone in our circle — each grownup, sibling, cousin, auntie or uncle, teacher, coach and care provider — contributes to creating a supportive environment for our family and kid to thrive. 

Additionally, as a single-child household led by two moms, we’ve been intentional about making sure our family community includes diverse and dynamic people who care about our son, so that he grows up seeing many examples of what it looks like to be a generous, engaged, and self-assured adult. My wife’s “Man of Honor” from our wedding has known our son since birth and now often takes him to the gym for weightlifting, and occasionally joins us for family nights out at McCaw Hall for ballet. On my side, I’m fortunate to have amazing siblings and friends who our son counts on for mentorship, professional opportunities and guy talks. 

It’s important to remember that raising kids is a collective effort and that there are so many vital roles that make family life possible.

2. Focus on what you can control

All too often, the Seahawks require help from other teams to get into the playoffs. In 2022 they needed the Detroit Lions to beat the Green Bay Packers to secure a Seattle playoff berth (they did). This season, they needed the Packers, Atlanta Falcons and Arizona Cardinals to win their week 17 matchups for the Hawks to stay in the running for an NFC West division title (they didn’t). Rats.

As a parent, it’s felt similarly scary to have to rely on external forces to come through for my kid. From walking him to the school bus in elementary school, to taking him for driving practice at 15, I often feel a mix of excitement and fear as I see my kid developing a life I will never fully see or truly understand. The older he gets, the more the divide between his home life and his Other Life becomes apparent as he experiments with the language, fashion trends, music tastes and attitudes that reflect more of his peers’ interests than those of his old moms. 

Last fall, our son was selected to be part of the 90.Teen youth DJ program at KEXP. The students attended six sessions of studio training at the station, and then had the opportunity to produce their own hour-long shows.

My wife and I had no idea what technical skills he was working on, who he was working with at KEXP, or whether he was even excited about it. Like a lot of 16-year-olds, he’s often tight-lipped about his day-to-day, especially, we’ve noticed, if he’s excited or nervous about an outcome. 

When we tuned in for his show’s debut at 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning, we had no idea what to expect and we were nervous. We had no hand at all in any of the process and now his voice was going to be shared with the world! To our delight, the music he lined up was eclectic, and during his interludes he was insightful and charming — his voice so deep and grown-up. He was a natural.

We were so proud, and pleased to have a little glimpse into the young man that he is out in the world.

Even if it’s sometimes terrifying, it has been freeing to acknowledge that I cannot control everything our kid is exposed to when he is away from us. It’s also been liberating to realize that our role as parents is not to micromanage his every moment, but to support his curiosities and ensure our home is a place where expectations are clear and consistent, and love is unconditional.

3. Use those time outs

Seahawks wide receiver DK Metcalf is a physically gifted player. Unfortunately, he also has a history of letting his emotions get the best of him, as he did in week 17 when he head-butted Chicago Bears cornerback Tyrique Stevenson and was called for two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties in one play.

As easy as it is to get caught up in the moment of a disagreement, it is important to work on our ability to take a beat and give our emotions a chance to reset. I have found that more often than not, family conflicts feel less intense and conversation is easier to navigate with a bit of time and space to decompress.

On particularly challenging nights of parenting a teen, my wife and I have, on occasion, driven to Trader Joe’s to procure sour sea creatures and peanut butter-stuffed pretzels and then parked on the street by our house to eat them in the car by the light of our phones glowing with videos of buff kangaroos and memes by our fellow middle-aged moms (five stars, would recommend). No judging. Do what you need to do. 

4. Embrace your team’s diversity

Football is unique among sports in terms of the diversity of skill sets needed to succeed. You can have a young phenom like Devon Witherspoon locking down the corners, but without a good run defense, the other team will pick you apart. Every player has a role to play.

Similarly, one of your kids might be a calculus whiz, and another might be a burgeoning poet. Maybe all they want to do is lift weights, while you had visions of them following in your nerdy footsteps to play first chair alto sax in the concert band (shout out to my woodwinds fam).

Regardless of your own passions or hopes, it’s important to see and embrace the uniqueness within your family to help foster open-mindedness and a sense of belonging in your kids. This also helps your child understand that their individual success contributes to the family and society as a whole.

It turns out that shepherding a child through childhood and adolescence has a lot in common with football.

In elementary school, our son went through a relentless Pokémon phase. It was all he talked about or wanted to do. Did I like playing endless games of Pokémon at our dining room table with all those cards covered with tiny writing about imaginary creature powers? No. Did I know the difference between Jigglypuff and Wigglytuff? Absolutely not. Did I play it for hours and hours for actual years of my life? Yes, yes I did. I now see that all those games not only encouraged the development of his STEAM and storytelling skills, but also fostered our “Other Mom” and son relationship. 

These days, our son doesn’t ask me to play much Pokémon, but he is into underground hip-hop that generally sounds to me like an auto-tuned car alarm submerged underwater. I’m more of a yacht-rock fan myself, but every once in a while he’ll put on a song and say “I think you’ll really like this one,” and you know what? He’s usually right. And that makes me feel pretty cool. 

5. Remember it’s a game of adjustments

In 2024, the Seahawks made big changes, bringing in new head coach Mike MacDonald, as well as new offensive and defensive coordinators. While the team fell short of the playoffs under this new triad, there were exciting flashes of potential on both sides of the ball, and you have to give the organization credit for not being afraid to try new things. The team even cut loose players midway through the season that just weren’t working out, and added new ones like linebacker Ernest Jones IV, who turned out to be a real spark plug for the defense.

Parenting also requires flexibility and regular course changes. Children grow, family dynamics change, relationships evolve, and the world at large keeps proving to be very different than it was when I was a kid.

Even if it’s sometimes terrifying, it has been so freeing to acknowledge that I cannot control everything our kid is exposed to when he is away from us.

I grew up in the ’80s and ’90s as a latchkey kid expected to suck it up, deliver straight As, and amuse myself with Transformers that didn't come with an on switch or an app. We didn’t drink water, we didn’t have cell phones, and we certainly weren’t having middle or high school conversations about our mental health.

For better or worse, my son is coming of age in a world where he is never unplugged, there’s usually an option for a do-over, and social-emotional wellbeing is a priority.

It’s taken a lot of work for me to begin to come around to the idea that the more direct, less “sensitive” way I was raised isn’t the only, or best, way to raise an independent child. I’m still learning. Being curious and willing to evolve as a parent has not only helped me be a better support to my son through all the stages of his development, but it has also supported my own ability to keep growing. 

6. Hang in there for the long game

In football, fans like to remind each other that you can’t win games in the first quarter (or second, or third …).

Alas, the Hawks will miss the playoffs again this season, which means more time to ruminate about all the things they could have done better, games they could have won, trades they should have made. But even if they had beat the Giants or Rams, or if the Falcons had beat the Commanders to keep our hopes alive in week 17, they would have been subject to the same scrutiny at whatever point they were knocked out. (Sorry guys, didn’t see a Super Bowl win in the cards this year.)

As with being a leader on the field, being a parent comes with a lot of pressure — to be perfect, to make the right decisions, to see around every corner, and always have the right answers. That’s unrealistic, of course. We’re all just doing the best we can with the information we have and the experience under our belts at the time. 

But I know these strategies have helped me keep things in perspective when I make mistakes. Every moment is an opportunity to adjust, to try again, and to get a little better. I’ve also found that it’s helped my relationship with my son when I’ve been open with him about the things I don’t know (see: Snapchat, Pluggnb, “rizz”), and when I’ve just simply apologized for getting frustrated or not handling a conflict in a constructive way.

The most important thing is to stick with it and keep trying. I’ve stuck with the Seahawks my whole life, even when they’ve driven me crazy and broken my heart (why did we throw it at the goal line instead of handing off to Marshawn Lynch?). Because hey, there’s always next season. And that means there’s hope.