Belonging and Cricket

I used to think motherhood, for me, came with a quiet disadvantage.

Not the obvious ones. Not the sleep deprivation or the endless logistics or the mental load everyone warns you about. Those are universal. What I mean is something more specific, and harder to name. The feeling that I was raising a child in a world I had not grown up in. That I was meant to guide him through an experience I had never personally lived.

I did not sit in an American classroom as a child. I did not grow up navigating friendships shaped by this culture. I did not play in local sports leagues or understand the ecosystem of tryouts, teams, and weekend tournaments. When I moved here at 23, belonging was not something I inherited. It was something I built, slowly and often awkwardly, piece by piece.

And because I knew what that felt like, I became determined that my son would not have to do the same kind of searching.

Like many parents, I turned to the most obvious path. Activities and sports, especially. It seemed simple. You sign your child up; they show up; they make friends; they become part of something. There is a structure already built, a community waiting.

So we tried.

Soccer first. Then basketball. Then taekwondo. Each time, I watched him carefully, looking for signs. Not perfection, not even talent. Just joy. That unmistakable spark that tells you something has landed.

But it never quite did.

He went. He participated. He did what was asked of him. But there was no pull. No excitement on the way there, no stories spilling out on the drive home. He never resisted, but he never leaned in either. It all felt neutral.

And if I’m honest, I felt a quiet anxiety underneath it. Maybe this was how it would be. Maybe belonging was not something you could manufacture, no matter how many opportunities you lined up.

Then, last summer, something shifted in an ordinary backyard get-together.

We had friends over, people we had known from our time in India. At some point, someone picked up a plastic bat. Someone else had a tennis ball. And without any discussion, a game began.

A bowler. A batsman. Laughter. Fielding in whatever space the backyard allowed. Everyone slipping into roles they hadn’t practiced in years, but somehow still knew exactly how to play.

It was cricket, of course. I joined in without thinking. So did my husband. It felt immediate and familiar in a way that required no translation. We grew up playing it. It lives in our bodies.

And then I noticed my son.

He wasn’t playing at first. He was standing off to the side, completely absorbed. Watching. The sound of the bat connecting, the easy chaos of it, the way everyone seemed to know what to do without explaining it. Something about it held him.

From that day on, he kept asking to learn.

Up until then, cricket had barely existed in his world. But suddenly, it became something he wanted to understand, to practice, to be part of.

Within weeks, his interest had turned into something more serious, which presented a different kind of challenge.

Because you can find soccer leagues anywhere in Westchester. Basketball, easily. Structured programs, coaches, teams, all ready-made.

Cricket is different.

We couldn’t just sign him up. We had to build it. We found a few families, connected with other parents trying to do the same thing, and eventually found a coach willing to teach from scratch. What started as a casual backyard moment became something with intention.

And once it existed, something else became clear. He belonged there.

Not because it was polished or established, but because it was familiar in a deeper way. He moved within that space with an ease I hadn’t seen before.

That’s when something shifted for me.

All this time, I had been trying to create a sense of belonging for him from the outside in. Through environments, exposure, and carefully chosen opportunities, I thought would anchor him. But I had overlooked something more fundamental. He already had a place of belonging with me.

Not in a symbolic sense, but in a very real one. The things that are part of me, the things that feel natural and joyful and unquestioned, are not separate from him. He absorbs them, not through instruction, but through proximity.

I had worried that my differences, my lack of firsthand experience in this culture, would somehow limit him.

But I am not a gap in his experience. I am a foundation.

He doesn’t need me to replicate an American childhood perfectly. He doesn’t need me to understand every system or anticipate every nuance. What he needs is something steadier than that. He needs roots.

And those roots don’t compete with the world he’s growing up in. They support him as he moves through it.

Cricket is just one example. It could have been anything—food, language, music, stories. The point is not the specific marker. It’s the connection behind it.

I don’t have to force these things. I don’t have to insist that he stay connected in prescribed ways. The connection is already there because it lives in me. And because of that, he is not starting from zero in this world the way I did.

His experience will be different from mine. They should be. I arrived here alone, figuring things out as I went. He is growing up with something I didn’t have at the time.

Continuity.

I am still, if I’m being honest, uncertain about how his path will unfold. I don’t fully understand every part of the culture he is moving through. I probably never will.

But I am less afraid of that now. Because belonging is not something I have to construct perfectly for him, it’s something he carries with him already. My role is to be the starting point he comes from.