Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Mari, the Happy Wanderer's avatar

Thank you so much for writing this piece about youth sports. To your powerful and convincing list of problems with them, I would like to add one more: youth sports have destroyed the wide-ranging, free-flowing neighborhood play among big groups of mixed-age kids that we all enjoyed in generations past. I am old enough to remember these games fondly—our moms would turn us loose after school or all day on weekends and in the summers, and big groups of us would roam around using our bodies and imaginations and developing social skills during quirky games we made up ourselves. (“Orphanage” was one I remember playing—perhaps because of all the books I was reading?)

By contrast, when my kids were young, our affluent NJ suburb was a ghost town when school wasn’t in session because every kid was in organized sports. My daughter is physically disabled, and my son had no desire to do sports (nor, to be fair, did I), so they were excluded from any opportunity for informal play with other kids. This is a huge loss for kids and parents alike, and I am grateful that you are starting this conversation.

Expand full comment
Liz's avatar

I so wish I had written this! We are Gen X parents (sounds better than saying 'old') of a very active, athletic 11 year old living in a suburban area where professionalization of children runs rampant. We've managed to opt out of this crazy system by sticking with LA parks and rec system sports, which are great and inexpensive, if looked down upon by the club crowd. It also helps that my son is naturally inclined to be multi-sport: he was really into swimming every day this summer when he was in the rec center jr. lifeguards program, and now he's really into playing flag football with his buddies at lunch, and has forgotten all about swimming. Soon, he'll be back into basketball and will have forgotten football... I think this is completely age appropriate yet it feels downright countercultural in our area.

We tried to "move up" to Little League--Little League!!-- once, for a short fall ball season, and it sucked the joy right out of baseball for my son. Practices and games were on an ever changing schedule, often resulting in weeks with 4-5 days of baseball. Weekday games were 2.5 hours long and went from after school right through dinner time. I kept looking around and thinking , "do ALL of these kids really love this much work at age 9?" This might be why an author I read (maybe in the book Simplicity Parenting?) lamented that the average kid drops out of team sports by age 11 or 12, which is the age where kids naturally turn from family towards peers and would be a great age to start team sports.

I teach at a D1 school and have taught many scholar-athletes. I delight in them and have tremendous respect for them-- no one can embody a growth mindset like someone who has worked so hard at one thing for so long. But I also don't want my son to have their experience, which is like having a physically punishing full time job that you can get fired from at any time, while going to an academically demanding school full time. Also, I want him to get through his K-16 education without needing a frequent buyers punch card from the orthopedist clinic.

Many commenters have mentioned the tournament racket. My favorite cautionary tale about that is a from a friend who got sucked into club soccer with one of her kids. When they spent thousands of dollars to go to a tournament in Arizona, they ended up playing a club from a neighboring suburb at home.

I do have ideas about fixing this system, most of which involve beefing up city-sponsored rec sports so that at least parents who might be on the fence see that there is a viable, low cost, low time option. Right now our rec center can never meet demand, and sign ups feature long lines at 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning, or hovering over your keyboard at midnight, hitting refresh to sign up before a program fills in 10 minutes. If we could hook this system up with our neighborhood schools and hire young adults to coach instead of relying on parent volunteers, we could solve inequitable participation and provide sports as after school care for elementary kids.

Expand full comment
85 more comments...

No posts