Youth Sports

Can we talk about youth sports for a minute? Benjamin in 10 years old and he just completed a season of swimming at the Chicago Park District. City-wide championships were last week and he finished fourth in both of the 25 yard and 50 yard backstroke, first in both the 25 and 50 yard butterfly and second in the 100 yard IM for his age group. He had a great meet, a great season, and we are very proud of how hard he works. It's nice to see that reflected in the results, of course, but I'm more proud of the character that he's forming in large part because of swimming. In swimming, there isn't that fun aspect of day-to-day training. I'd venture to say that a small percentage of the kids who swim competitively actually enjoy the endless laps they have to swim for practice because it's hard work. The joy of swimming comes in racing and winning / dropping time, which results in a good deal of daily pain. There are critical life lessons to be gleaned through swimming competitively for sure.

In our family, the oldest two (10 and 8) are at the age at which they are playing different sports and trying to figure out what they enjoy and what they're good at. Ben swims and plays baseball; Caroline likes to tell everyone that she plays four sports: soccer, baseball, swimming, and now floor hockey. I signed up Elias for track this year and he seems to enjoy it but is exhausted by the end of it.

With the notable exception of Caroline's soccer team, all of their sports have been organized through the Chicago Park District, which is accessible (there are several parks within 2 miles from our house), affordable, and not overly burdensome from a time commitment standpoint, that is, the games and meets are within the city and tend to be once or twice per week. Swimming is the most time intensive with practices three times per week (though they are open every weekday, so we could go five days) and then meets twice per month on a Saturday morning. However, with these benefits come drawbacks, specifically that the quality of the programs vary widely depending on your park district. You can sign up for programs and the instructors don't do much of anything except stand there. Or the facilities and equipment is shoddy. Or it's all volunteer-coached, which can also be a crapshoot in terms of the level of coaching and instruction. The skill level of the children who play is also extremely variable: you have some kids who have never played at all and some who are significantly more advanced. As children get older, sports become more self-selecting; typically kids who are not having at least a modicum of success at something tend to drop out of their own accord and pursue something that they are good at. We are happy with Ben's main swim coach. His club is small so he gets very personalized attention and has dropped significant amounts of time in every event in the two years he's been swimming. Chris said that his is the prime age for dropping time, so perhaps not surprising but nice he's on that trajectory.

So the question is this: how much time and money do you invest in your children's athletic endeavor? Especially when there is no indication that the investment is going to return a quantifiable dividend, such as a college scholarship, an Olympic placement, or a professional career? That umbrella comfortably encapsulates the vast majority of children playing organized sports; if your child has those precocious gifts that would land them in the elite category then it is completely reasonable to pursue every avenue available to them. As previously mentioned, there are many good and great things about children being involved in sports: physical health, a feeling of pride & accomplishment, understanding teamwork, building camaraderie / friendship, and a host of less enumerable benefits. When do you decide to take your child to the "next level" of competition and commitment? For both me and Chris, we both played sports as children through the high school level. Neither of us were on travel teams or a higher level of competition than a rec league or its equivalent.

What are my goals for my kids athletically? Ben wants to be a MLB player. Is his goal realistic? Not really, but anything is possible. Do I invest the time and resources into his dream, or Caroline's (though she has never expressed wanting to be a professional athlete)? To what extent do I sacrifice family downtime and togetherness with driving around Chicagoland to take my kids to sports? The fact that we only have one car is limiting and forces us to put boundaries around extracurricular activities which is a pain but actually helpful in the end. What is your family's calculus?