Ruby Griffin is the family’s most seasoned tennis player. She’s been taking lessons for half of her life, so on court at the Burbank Tennis Center, Ruby, 5, happily shows her mom,
Castro, the proper forehand position. Hold the racket up and stand, as the coach says, like a surfer balancing on a board.
“She’s the tennis girly,” says Castro, 42, of Toluca Lake. “So, I’m taking a back seat, and she’s being the leader to me.”
At this new Mommy and Me tennis class, caretakers aren’t just dropping off their kids — they are dropping into the game and staging their own personal comeback stories. Castro was once a dancer and a cheerleader. But when Ruby was born, her entire identity shifted to motherhood. Coming back to her own self has taken time.
Jacqueline Castro runs warm up drills.
“Here I am,” Castro says, looking out at the tennis court. “Baby steps.”
In this class, Hello Kitty-emblazoned shirts and tiny Dodgers hats are the highest tennis fashion statements. Some participants, as young as 3 years old, can barely see over the net. And when Coach Chessa Mehlman asks a young player to show off his forehand, he sits on the racket. Wimbledon, this is not.
But these two events share unexpected connective tissue — moms seeking to expand their athletic identities. At least six mothers competed in the Wimbledon women’s singles draw this year, including Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, Elina Svitolina, Taylor Townsend, Belinda Bencic and Tatjana Maria.
1. Dej Tobolowsky with her daughter, Dior, 6, during a Mommy & Me tennis class. 2. Nicole LeVine with her son, Roman, 7, during a Mommy & Me tennis class.
On her return to Wimbledon before her injury, Williams said in a personal essay she was motivated by motherhood. “If I did return, it would be about experience, about sharing the moment with my kids. Maybe even a small moment where I can say, “‘Look — this is what Mommy used to do.’”
The Wimbledon moms offer a spectacular version of a quieter question confronting many caregivers: What does it take to keep, reclaim or expand an athletic life after children? For many women, the obstacle is not a lack of desire. It’s the infrastructure around it: childcare, time, money, bodily recovery and a place where being rusty is allowed. In her first-round loss, Williams displayed powerful serves while her daughters Olympia and Adira Ohanian looked on. A knee injury would cut Wimbledon short, but the 44-year-old hinted at another comeback afterward.
Kimberly Foon took a decadeslong pause from tennis — a sport she loves — when family life and career consumed most of her time. The Mommy and Me class is a great compromise, says Foon, 49, who lives in Pasadena. She approaches the net with her son Ian Foon, 4, and readies the racket to swat away water balloons — a perfect antidote to a hot summer day.
Upon impact, the balloons explode, drenching both mom and son. They squeal in delight and run back to the line to wait for another turn.
1. Kimberly Foon with her son, Ian, 4. 2. Tasia Smith with her daughter, Harlow Dixon, 5.
Lowering the barrier to entry
In Los Angeles, parent-child classes are abundant, but Mehlman’s tennis class is different in emphasis. It grew out of watching mothers sit on the sidelines of their children’s lessons and yearning for a way to get on the court themselves. Mehlman, 31, a former Ithaca College athlete whose own tennis journey was sidelined by injury, knows something about comebacks. So she lowered the barrier of entry for moms. She hopes to make the Burbank Mommy and Me tennis class a monthly fixture.
An adult tennis racket and a child’s racket rest on the court.
“I think the moms are often much more into it than their kids,” says Mehlman. Caretakers with little ones can RSVP when the monthly schedule is posted on Instagram.
At last week’s class, high-fives and hair-styling tips were generously distributed between thwacks of tennis balls. Moms trade stories about dance classes and kid-friendly restaurants. Some are tennis novices while others, like Foon, are coming off a long pause. Many repeat the same sentiment: It feels good to move and hold a racket again — or for the first time.
The class is casual, but the need it answers is not. Once parenthood begins, societal expectations often decenter a mother. She stops being the main character in her own story, says Victoria L. Jackson, a sports historian and co-director of the Great Game Lab, a research entity at Arizona State University.
Coach Chessa Melman leads stretches with mothers and their children before class.
That’s not a coincidence. For generations, athletes have been treated as if motherhood stamps their athletic identities with an expiration date. Williams named that tension in 2022 when she announced she was “evolving away” from tennis to expand her family — a choice, she pointed out, that is rarely framed the same way for her male counterparts.
Williams’ announcement gave the conflict a modern frame, but the question of whether mothers belong in sport has been argued for generations. Women were first allowed to compete in track and field at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. But false reports about exhausted runners after the first women’s 800-meter race helped justify the exclusion of this women’s race until 1960. That year, Wilma Rudolph became the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field in a single Olympics. At the time, Rudolph was a mother.
To Jackson, a Mommy and Me tennis class like this one fits into a longer history of women finding their own way into sports before larger systems make room for them. Change often starts locally, she says, with people solving the problem in front of them. Over time, those small solutions can help shift what’s possible.
1. Alysia Montano runs in the Women”s 800 Meter opening round during Day 1 of the 2017 USA Track & Field Championships at Hornet Satdium on June 22, 2017 in Sacramento, California. (Andy Lyons / Getty Images) 2. Alysia Montano runs in the opening round of the Women’s 800 Meter on day 2 of the USATF Outdoor Championships at Hornet Stadium on June 26, 2014 in Sacramento, California. (Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
“Sports is a microcosm of what’s happening in the world,” says Alysia Montaño, a seven-time national champion and Olympic bronze medalist in the 800-meter, who became one of the most visible athletes to challenge the idea that pregnancy and motherhood make women less valuable in sports. Montaño famously raced pregnant — twice.
In 2019, Montaño pushed back against sponsors and sports culture that still treated motherhood as a liability rather than a natural part of a woman’s professional journey. Now, she’s founded For All Mothers+, a nonprofit that supports mothers with resources, research and services such as childcare grants.
The next round of grant recipients, to be announced July 20, will receive $2,000 for childcare, free training gear and resources. In the last two years, 75 mothers have received childcare grants or, as Montaño describes, the “opportunity to be whole.”
Recent research shows that women still carry most of the childcare duties that keep family life moving. To train and compete, a mother needs someone to hold their baby.
Nicole LeVine practices with her son, Roman, 7.
Confronting the ‘motherhood penalty’
There is a name for the cost women pay when motherhood makes them seem less ambitious or capable: the motherhood penalty. It shows up in the workforce in pay and promotions, but also on the tennis court or running track. The flip side is societal pressure when they aim to be ambitious despite all the hurdles.
Stephanie Johannesmeyer knows this all too well. The Antelope Valley mom of Athena Johannesmeyer, 5, balances motherhood and her social services career with running clubs and races — all while managing chronic illness. Keeping up with the training and races requires the whole family to adjust, she says. Her husband is a government contractor who travels often, which means childcare is always part of the equation. In January, she ran the Disney World Marathon using a For All Mothers+ childcare grant.
Throughout her fitness journey, Johannesmeyer, 35, has fielded criticism both from loved ones and on social media about her choice to dedicate time to running. Questions about her priorities as a mom have been whispered and shouted, so without hesitation, she answers. On her worst days, battling postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome — POTS, a blood circulation disorder — she has struggled to get out of bed. She has also crossed finish lines with Athena cheering her on.
“For me, maintaining that sense of self and identity helps me be a better mother. It helps to show [Athena] that even on days where we have weaknesses, we can embrace our strengths,” Johannesmeyer says.
At the tennis class, almost all moms echo versions of this sentiment: Dedicating time for themselves makes them better moms. When Roman LeVine, 7, eagerly swings at a water balloon, his mom Nicole LeVine pauses to take a video.
Jacqueline Castro watches as her daughter, Ruby, 5, hits a water balloon.
In addition to the Mommy and Me tennis class, Roman takes private tennis lessons. Will this be the sport that establishes his athletic identity? In motherhood, LeVine, 40, seeks to answer the same question for herself. Every week, she puts on her tennis outfits and heads to the courts to play with a small group. Recently, a tennis coach casually referred to LeVine as an athlete. It was the first time she heard herself described this way.
“I was like, ‘Can you stop for a second? I’m a theater kid. I’m not an athlete,’” LeVine says with a laugh. “But now, I am.”
