My daughter’s rec soccer coach is such a gem that we kept her in rec throughout her entire childhood. He’s been doing it so long that he coached the dad of one of our girls. He turned 80 this year, and he has this great perspective and a calm, warm presence with the girls. I was talking with him one day and he told me a story about how he organized his own youth baseball team when he was a child in the 50s. He recruited the boys from school, convinced a local business to donate money for the jerseys, and communicated with other neighborhood kids to build a schedule. My jaw hit the ground. I immediately began comparing it to my son’s youth baseball experience which has been wildly expensive and, at times, infantilizing. It made me sad that, in ramping all of this up, we’ve taken something from them too. His experience was remarkable because it was rare, but if parents didn’t do all of this extra organizing, coaching, schmoozing, fundraising etc etc etc, would kids really stop playing? Or would they just stop playing this overly-managed, semi professional version of their sports? It’s not a rhetorical question. The challenges facing our kids (social-emotional, etc) are real and there are a hundred less healthy things vying for their attention. Are we doing all of this out of fear that, if we didn’t, they wouldn’t choose a healthy alternative? And are we ok with continuing to exert that kind of control (which we know has its own costs)?
Wow, thanks for the story and pointing out how muddled this has all become. Obviously I can't love this coach's methods enough. It seems impossible to copy in this day and age but it's not. I know a group of kids who play high level baseball and decided to organize a whiffleball league last year. I believe they did marketing (one benefit of teens having social, I suppose), figured out open fields and made shirts. Obviously not high stakes at all but sounds like they had a lot more fun than the grind of travel sports.
My daughter’s rec soccer coach is such a gem that we kept her in rec throughout her entire childhood. He’s been doing it so long that he coached the dad of one of our girls. He turned 80 this year, and he has this great perspective and a calm, warm presence with the girls. I was talking with him one day and he told me a story about how he organized his own youth baseball team when he was a child in the 50s. He recruited the boys from school, convinced a local business to donate money for the jerseys, and communicated with other neighborhood kids to build a schedule. My jaw hit the ground. I immediately began comparing it to my son’s youth baseball experience which has been wildly expensive and, at times, infantilizing. It made me sad that, in ramping all of this up, we’ve taken something from them too. His experience was remarkable because it was rare, but if parents didn’t do all of this extra organizing, coaching, schmoozing, fundraising etc etc etc, would kids really stop playing? Or would they just stop playing this overly-managed, semi professional version of their sports? It’s not a rhetorical question. The challenges facing our kids (social-emotional, etc) are real and there are a hundred less healthy things vying for their attention. Are we doing all of this out of fear that, if we didn’t, they wouldn’t choose a healthy alternative? And are we ok with continuing to exert that kind of control (which we know has its own costs)?
Wow, thanks for the story and pointing out how muddled this has all become. Obviously I can't love this coach's methods enough. It seems impossible to copy in this day and age but it's not. I know a group of kids who play high level baseball and decided to organize a whiffleball league last year. I believe they did marketing (one benefit of teens having social, I suppose), figured out open fields and made shirts. Obviously not high stakes at all but sounds like they had a lot more fun than the grind of travel sports.