I taught at the high school level for about ten years before shifting into tech. I was always astounded by the level of devotion many families had toward traveling sports (notably hockey up here in Minnesota). Outside of truly elite athletic pipelines, I honestly believe competitive youth sports have gotten completely out of hand. Here’s to hoping my son grows up to be a mediocre athlete.

My brother recently retired after a career (~18-38ish) as a professional basketball player. It worked for him and there were opportunities to leverage contacts for employment after sport. But that was a 15+ year career. Anything too far short of that is a risk, IMO. Watching many of his peers defer tertiary study, or forgo jobs for training roles, or be out of the league after a few underpaid years while contemporaries were getting promoted with years of study or work under their belt - I figured you want your children to be very good or hobbyists playing social sport or to keep fit. Anything in the middle might just be distraction or disappointment.

Awesome for him. Parents dont want to hear what .000001 % actually have a chance to go pro? Every year after the season we always asked if they were still having fun. To us it was good skill building. Social,fitness, how to lose etc.

That sounds like the right attitude to me. Less of a "future Olympian" gamble and more of a method to achieve other things.

Exactly that. Good life skills. And guess what. They still play casual and have a blast are fit healthy and pretty mentally strong. (Proud dad eeking out). We have life long friends whos kids went more music or arts but with the same kind of attitude. Guess what. They are happy too. To us it was just helping them find stuff they liked doing.

The biggest rule was if you start a season you finish it. (There were exceptions for sure) it wasnt all roses but they learned from that too

It has. Everyone’s kid now is a future pro millionaire. Our family has a decent few pro football (american) and baseball players and we have always played high level sports. My deal with the kids was always you play what you want at the level you want. If its not fun pick something else. I think sports are important. 2 of my kids did very well with soccer (college scholarship level) my youngest said nah. She danced and worked at the pet shelter :)

What is 'TJ'?

I've googled around and not been able to come up with anything in the context of education. Teaching Journal? Therapeutic Jurisprudence?

Sorry. Thomas jefferson highschol. Ranked best in nation for a long time. It was very hard to get into

I checked with some of my friends who had parents that lived in the Eastern Bloc, but couldn't find out anything.

It’s so weird that so many people ruin the happiness in their lives trying to compete for a spot at an elite university so they can get in the fast lane to making money for a corporation as a VP or something. And for what? So they can have a bigger house or “better” vacations?

Why don’t we push kids to find happiness in whatever they do and that living in a bungalow in a working class area and driving used cars doesn’t really matter.

Its all superficial competition. As a society we have made it so if you dont make x dollars youre a failure. I do think the pandemic opened a lot of eyes to change though.

Also the push for college or youre a failure and will never get a job has been supremely harmful to kids via debt and a myriad other issues.

Does all of this stem from parents worrying about their children being set up for their future? Or trying to develop well-rounded people? Or trying to socialise their children?

I'm mid-forties in Australia. In my early twenties, it was pretty viable to save a deposit in a year or so, get a loan and buy a house. Now, you'd want 5-10x the deposit and I doubt early-twenties types here would have a chance of buying a house now. Maybe if they were a couple, both in very good jobs, saving aggressively, and even then they'd have a fat mortgage. It will be harder again in 15-20 years when my children would be doing this.

I figure extra-curricular activities for kids that involve loads of travel are a risky burden on a family. I'd rather travel and camp where I want to go, not just where the sports tournament happens to be, or give up every weeknight shuttling children. One of our kids has done dance because the lessons are 3 mins walk away. Or two have done tennis because their lessons are together and the third kid can play at the adjacent playground. Or music lessons during school time or immediately after. Not sure if it's parental laziness or reasonable!

I think parents use “preparing them for the future” as an excuse tbh. Part of it is they are trying to relive their childhood through the kids (seen this ALOT). I coached rec league basketball and soccer for 20 years and it was very prevalent.

It was funny/sad as every once in a while i would have the kids bring a book or a boardgame to practice and parents would loose their shit. Kids loved it but a lot of i was hampering their childs development type talk. Give me a break. Its rec league. Made for learning the game and having a blast doing it