Two Kids. One Trophy.🏆
Aug 26, 2025
I have a very clear memory from when two of my boys were in third and fourth grade. Their teams were playing each other in the basketball championship game, and I was… not okay.
I remember the night before the game, processing (AKA completely stressing- the type of stress men don’t understand necessarily) out loud to Husband. “There’s no possible way for them both to win,” I said. “Every basket for one is a heartbreak for the other. How do I sit there cheering for one, knowing I’m cheering against the other?”
On one hand, it was kind of nice—at least one of them would come home happy with the trophy. But is that real joy when your brother is hurting in the exact same moment?
I became a little (okay, a lot) obsessed. I started thinking through elaborate plays in my head—ideas I would give each team as if I were the coach—secretly trying to orchestrate a perfect tie.
As if that’s real life.
As if!
This “basketball game” shows up in so many places for all of us. And as the children grow older, the stakes are bigger than a plastic trophy, which truly seemed like the most important life accomplishment.
When raising multiple children in the family, it’s likely to experience this, at least in some form, over the years.
A daughter returns from seminary having grown in many ways (🤭) and ready to be celebrated—yet she knows her arrival adds pressure to her older sister still waiting for her Mister.
A set of twins: one excels in the honors program and brings home a stream of “Best in Learning” certificates. The other walks to the resource room quietly, trying not to be noticed and trying not to notice all his brother’s awards on the fridge.
Two siblings, close as ever, one gets married at 20, the other still waiting five years later.
Two married couples. One having babies easily, the other struggling with infertility.
Same family. Same love. Different realities.
And we, as mothers, are left holding it all.
I used to think my job was to fix it.
To smooth out the bumps. To somehow equalize their wins so no one felt left behind.
Now, I realize my job is to sit with both truths at once.
To be fully present in one child’s joy without abandoning the one who’s hurting.
To show them that we don’t need to fake a tie in order to be okay.
Turns out, my job was never to make sure they both win.
… It was to be the mom they both look for in the bleachers—win or lose.
❤️, Shifi
