There is something deeply wrong here. I blame other parents who overschedule their kids.

Ah, the mantra of our parental lives!

These classes kids go to aren’t always some kind of arduous, academic overachiever factory. My kid goes to a Spanish immersion after school program once a week and she loves it. She’s made a ton of friends there. We’re not shoving her through the door.

Don’t get me wrong, some parents do go over the top with it, no doubt. But a lot of these activities are genuinely enriching.

Meeting other parents is a huge effort, though! It's basically dating all over again. If your kids ride the school bus, that's a big help because you automatically meet nearby parents who are home in the afternoon. Otherwise, you have to go to lots of events and ask parents for their phone numbers, but the majority don't work out for random reasons.

When I was young, my parents knew the parents of maybe one or two of my friends, and that was only largely because they knew each other from somewhere else. We didn't need to have our parents organize and sync up their schedules to go play together. We'd just go and meet up. If no one was around outside, might go up and knock on the door of a few friends see if they wanted to do something. But ultimately, we had largely free reign to ourselves.

Now, at a later age, I also really wouldn't want to have to get to know the parents of my kids' friends either. Meet once or twice to get to see them face-to-face, maybe get some basic contact info just in case, but for the most part, I don't really want my kids' social relationships to be based on how well I can get along with other parents (with a few small exceptions.)

Oh, and even after, gee, sorry, not charging phones when on the road.

Why don't you move to an area that's not like that, or you go an play with your kid at the park until other kids show up.

or build an app that makes the makes scheduling the play time very seamless.

I'd talk to people in class and they'd claim to have like 1 or two hours free between school and sleep. And I had something like 8 hours free. What the hell?

Fast forward to present day and my kids are beginning to build ramps for their bikes just like I used to do - and I'm right out there with them building so I can shred on my MTB just like the old days lol.

The neighbors have been gone every weekend to a different part of the state or another state entirely for 8U baseball, and I can't help but feel sorry for them as someone who went through the same thing as a kid.

What we should have done is expand access to elite colleges commensurate with demand, and thereby dilute the status of the "elite" college. Harvard still accepts ~2000 people, around the same as 40 years ago, even though demand has skyrocketed. That is basically leading to more and more competition over the same slots, same as the bidding wars in the housing market. And all of the alumni of the University get to ride the wave of more and more exclusivity (they benefit from a low acceptance rate), so this is unlikely to change.

Artificial scarcity rules the day.

Guess what? Kids who have never had time to play are ones who have never had time to develop cool interests.

Jack Nicholson said it best (repeatedly): All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

I know enough of those who went to these so-called top tier colleges, meanwhile I took my time getting through an average college, but nonetheless exploring interests, making eclectic friends.

Most people around me were treating life like a sprint - My young self even back then knew it was a marathon.

I am not saying be aimless but don't drive yourself crazy at this altar of success - it will come, but there are life lessons you learn in your 20s - that are the foundation for a better life later.

There was also definitely a strong undercurrent of first-generation immigrants to the US pushing their kids hard, because they had no reason to distrust the message that if you want to succeed in the US, you need to go to a top college so you can get a good job.

But as I've studied this issue and experienced life, it seems to be the case that credentials are in reality overrated compared to competence and experience. The vast majority of colleges will admit anyone, and the vast majority of employers requiring a degree just ask that you have a degree of any kind.

So now I think parents should just chill, not because it's the altruistic strategy in game theory, but because that's how the actual labor market works. Parents are killing themselves and their kids for no reason.

Gotta say though, this seems to be purely a thing in the english speaking cultures. Apart from sport and maybe an instrument, extracurriculars aren't a thing in most european countries.

Extracurriculars are so peculiar that our ministry of education deems it necessary to make it a mandatory point for teachers to discuss when talking about american childrens typical day in school.

This is a major thing in many East Asian cultures as well, China/Taiwan/Japan/Korea. Korea had to pass a law saying that private academies have to close at 10pm, so that kids aren't studying past midnight, but some academies still stay open secretly as the parents are demanding the extra hours. It's a vicious circle: kids compete for the few spots in top universities so they can get into the best companies, average qualifications rise, so next generation have to compete even harder for the same few spots.

This is carried over to the US as well. Asians compete for the few spots in top universities, as they are held to higher standards already, and this just keep ratcheting up the average standard for Asians each generation.

(I suppose the answer is that there's an economic incentive in squeezing your kids into a pressure cooker of endless commitments, to the point where the pros outweigh the cons; but this assumption makes me feel like I'm being unfairly cynical to the parents in question.)

And indeed, in that framing, it is going to be tough to make it so that those who can afford to spend their time shouldn't do so.

So, are there policies where we could make it so that folks can put a legit value in the things they are neglecting for this extra spend in time? I can certainly hope so.

Depends on what you mean. Afterschool activities often include sports, so there's some balance between academics and physical activities, but physical activities won't get you into a good school unless you are at a competitive level, so there are high pressures there as well.

As for parents who recognize the importance of downtime? The ones that can afford it... send their kids overseas. But of course, even with added downtime, those kids are more academically competitive, so they end up ratcheting up the standards in the area they go to.

Mom would find me, send me back to bed, and shame me for reading. Then I was further shamed and humiliated when I was fitted for spectacles in third grade. Of course my parents blamed myopia on reading books in poor lighting.

That bathroom was actually the site of innumerable playtimes for me. Battleships and Cartesian divers in the tub, Rubik's cube maintenance, trying to get my alligator lizard to drink from the tap. It was a dingy, dusty playground where I felt kinda safe and clean.

similarly, china banned private afterschool services for school subjects. i don't know how effective the ban is, but their argument was similar.

Would love to see updated numbers on it.

That is good for planning/preparing for the future.

Being scheduled to the gills means that the ‘now’ is constantly filled with planning/preparing/doing things for the future though.

And with no time for the present or for being able to think/daydream.

Especially as we get to middle and high school. Many of us had jobs back then. Isn't uncommon for many small businesses to have a lot of help they use their children for. Not even going back to farms. Though, hard not to see all of the chores that many of those would have around the place as scheduled.

Edit: Tried to stealth fix, but I did flip a less to a more at the top there. Apologies for anyone that may respond to my mistake there.

I’m not 100% sure what is real and what is selection bias. What is due to class shifts, increased income earning, etc. too. This seems like something that should have studies around it with actual data, but I couldn’t find it directly with a quick search.

All I’ve personally experienced is seeing parents (and myself) struggle to get kids into various activities due to the huge demands on our own time, and trying to figure out how to get a good outcome for the kids from it. All of these folks I know were either from low middle and now high middle, or high middle and still high middle class backgrounds.

Upper class type folks already had a set of things they ‘did’, and while there was competition, it looked different.

I found [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6720124/] which is quite interesting, but that also seems to be oriented around ‘what do various types of extracurricular activities/after school social interactions actually produce’.

Which is very interesting, and goes more to the outcome as compared to changes over time.

That is, I feel it acutely, but not clear how much of this is the biases you named. Would love to see studies. I also failed finding any. I also agree it is almost certainly studied.

To be fair, my schedule got quite busy in final years. But it was because I started building websites for €€€. But I doubt it’s comparable to parents-scheduled extracurricular activities. And I learned programming in my free unstructured time by myself.

Learning to live self sufficiently is better with unstructured time IMO. When you have to learn to put together your own schedule, follow it and do day-to-day tasks. It’s horrible how many kids can’t make themselves dinner and clean up the house after themselves. Because kid is always busy and mommy takes care of everything because little 18 y/o is so tired. Of course it doesn’t help that in many cases mommy can’t do much better than microwave dinner or order a takeout :/

Bring back the pop-in!

Today, I'm not really crazy about the idea of a random pop-in, having to cut the few hours of time that I do have for laundry, dishes, or just a bit of down time, to have to make coffee and find snacks and sit down for a chat. If I were home all day that would be quite different, or so I think.

Doing the dishes when you pop in? Cool, you get to dry them as I wash. Everyone basically follows this rule. There’s no expectation of entertaining guests if you pop in for a visit.

If not that well off, it’s usually worse.

And near as I can tell, that barely keeps their head above water, if that.

Although, I see no problem with impromptu visits, I get them all the time. They just happen to call or text before coming.

These days many people don't even know the names of the people living across the street.

Maybe this whole "scheduling" things was a mistake.

no need to roll up and see how your week has been, just send someone a how-do and maybe to a 5 min facetime

- don’t focus on GPA, focus on actually gaining knowledge and understanding how the world works. good grades are a measure of how you understand things. they should never be the goal. I was a C student and I am more curious about things than many of my peers with fancy degrees.

- forge your own path, there is always a thousand different paths out there. College is just one.

- no replacement for hard work. don’t expect anything in life. anything worth getting, you’ll have to compete with many others to get it so learn to be a good competitor.

- college should be approached with all the tradeoffs and as any other investment. We’ve told them we will not pay for their college. so they will have to make choices about getting the best bang for your buck. We’re the only parents in our whole social circle that aren’t saving for their college. it feels weird and isolating when that topic comes up.

- first think about the kind of life you want and then make choices to get you that life.

they’re already sick if my lectures. and they’re 10 and 5. :-)

There’s no exemption for “I want to teach my kids financial responsibility”. If you’re high income your children will be ineligible for any financial aid and have few options for funding their own education.

The FAFSA is such a crappy measuring stick for college affordability. I ended up having to make up the difference with loans, now it wouldn't be feasible.

They can choose to go to very good public universities with in state tuition (often around $10-12k per year). We can sit down and discuss the tradeoffs of the degree they are getting vs the earning power of that degree. And the tradeoffs between being a commuter student and one that lives on campus. Or saving money by attending community college the first two years.

NONE of those conversations will happen if I struggle to save 200k per kid and they simply don’t understand the concept of having to pay that back somewhere. Or ever think about whether a particular degree has any real value.

This is part of the problem with just going along with the high fees and running that rat race.

I certainly did not have a “very good public university” with $10k tuition. My state flagship (Rutgers) was over $20k per year. Other states public universities were often even more expensive, Berkeley would have cost more than any private university I was accepted to.

If you live somewhere like CA, Texas, or Michigan then more power to you, your kids should have great options. But it’s not advice that transfers. And again, the government is of the position that that 40-60k is your responsibility. I don’t agree with the way higher education is managed either but you’re not opting out of it, your just passing the costs to your kids.

- University of Maryland, College Park ~ $10k a year [1]

- University of California, Los Angeles ~ $15k a year [2]

- University of Pennsylvania, WOW $56k ... that's .... CRAZY for a public University.

Obviously this is not at all a good sample size but I picked public universities in populous areas in states that cover a lot of the population. And I'm picking better known ones. Someone else probably has a lot of good, statistical data on this, like the US Gov Department of Education.

1: https://academiccatalog.umd.edu/undergraduate/fees-expenses-...

2: https://admission.ucla.edu/tuition-aid/tuition-fees

3: https://srfs.upenn.edu/costs-budgeting/undergraduate-cost-at...

In college I didn't care about grades. Still graduated.

At work I don't care about promotions. I still get raises well above inflation and am doing great.

I have many friends without the same opportunities and I would be struggling just as much as them if it weren't for the tech bits (and a little bit of being in the right place at the right time)

I guess what I'm saying is you can throw a child into extracurriculars and just sort of hope the extra work makes the difference between comfort and struggling. Or you can encourage them to find hobbies and reinforce the ones that will lead to comfort and stability as my parents did.

I've read this before from Americans, and I don't get it. In my culture if parents can pay for their kids' education, they do it. There's a time and a place to teach them financial responsability, I feel distracting them with financial concerns during their most challenging years of schooling is not it.

When I went to college (paid for by my parents), I had friends who had to work on the side to pay for rent and groceries. They barely hung by, very few had great grades since they had to split their time between work and study. One of my close friends ended up dropping out because he was burned out.

Of course this doesn't mean you should pay 50k for a degree in feminist dance therapy, you make sure you only pay for something with ROI (That's another thing I don't understand about Americans. In a country with tuition so high, how can so many pursue degrees with such awful job prospects?)

We’ve actually discussed that a bit. We will never let them get to the point where they have to worry about eating meals, or worry that their academics have to suffer to make ends meet.

We even considered for example giving them a living allowance so they have more flexibility in picking jobs, but aren’t desperate. But it’s important to me that they understand and intelligently approach the first large financial decision of their lives.

It’s also important (to me) that my kids work during college, whether it’s waiting tables in a restaurant, or a retail job, and understand the value of money and the value of serving lots of customers (including angry customers). Those experiences never leave you. You have more empathy for someone waiting tables or taking longer or making mistakes when you’ve done it yourself.

We are pretty well off right now and our kids have a very nice life. It’s important that they learn that it isn’t the default, and that it is a result of working hard. They’re already good kids. You’re right, our job parents is not to let them hit a point of desperation. But at the same time we also want them to learn the value of hard work, juggling priorities, and having the pride of having paid your own way through college.

These are all the additional lessons outside the classroom.

Full scheduling of random stuff doesn't mean it would always help the children. It's the children's version of appearing busy.

In this age of extreme abundance, we have lost the ability to just daydream, people watch, etc. I’m not glamorizing being bored. I used to hate waiting for 30 mins for the bus.

Sorry this is something I lecture my kids about a lot! :-)

There is an extremely small sliver of society where that one additional extracurricular makes the difference between getting into an excellent school vs a merely great school. For everyone else, the long term value is quite dubious.

They should aim to become a so-called “mindless office worker” as it offers a very high quality of life, so yes that is a life worth looking forward to. It’s a life our ancestors would sell their daughters for

I don’t agree that office drone life in rat race is worth looking to anymore. It’s a miserable mix of depression, obesity, long hours away from one’s family and likely loving a cramped life in a non-humanly-sized mega city.

Generative AI will probably take a lot of less soul sucking jobs on that front. While certain cultures embracing 996 will compete for others.

Depending on AI progress, I‘ll probably steer my kid towards vocational school. Tile layers, santechniks and electricians looks like very promising getaway from all this BS. Or whatever comes into picture in the next decade.

The stuff about AI just makes you sound out of touch with reality. You clearly spend too much time online and it has detached you from real flesh and blood life. Re enter your life

Office workers can easily be poor. Just like other lines of work allow to make plenty of money.

Generative AI already does a damn good job at generating illustrations and writing crappy descriptions. Doesn’t it?

The only realistic way to win is not to play.

This enlightened thinking is good for you ego but you do actually have a material body to feed, so you either play the game of life or you die

And yes, you may call it impoverished. But is it really worth to optimise for material stuff? Settling down with less may pay off a ton in other departments.

Who cares if you drive a fancy car or a 10 y/o toyota? Both gets you from A to B in a relatively safe manner. If someone does care, that’s his problem. Same applies to pretty much any expenses line. Meanwhile having plenty of time to yourself may help to prevent many health issues and do things that make life wholesome.

That’s what I did in my 20ies. I’d freelance during winter with some cross country skiing tours in local woods thrown in. Then wrap up my projects in spring, spend the summer cycling and amateur racing and then start looking for new projects as season wrapped up. I didn’t have money for dance trips but I had a ton of great time on my bicycles and raced at relatively high amateur level.

Would I be happier working 3 months more and spending a couple weeks riding in fancy places with less stamina instead of riding a lot but locally all that time? I don’t think so.

There’s another legendary example in my circles. Dude bought a very nice car. Put on expensive wheels, installed engine tune and all that jazz. He was completely out of money, couldn’t go on any road trip for a while. His girlfriend wasn’t excited to adore the car sitting at the curb whole holiday.

Especially when their reactions to things not being structured to favor them at every step leads to them having a negative reputation...

Those who thrive in both good and bad circumstances can find intrinsic motivation even when things don't go their own way. A young adult who's never exposed to the need for that can flounder, just as much as a young adult who's never been held to any standards can.

And that's an especially dangerous assumption if you buy the original article here's claim that not doing that is a big problem for mental health.

Anyways, point is, this fostered my interest in nature (looking for bugs), my sociability and strategy (card games), and my agility and teamwork (wall ball). This was stuff I worked hard at too, because they were my interests.