Yay! The kids are back at school! Parents rejoice, so happy for the public service that allows them to go to work each day knowing someone is nurturing their little kiddos. We all start to get those new routines down, determine who needs new soccer cleats, swap out the summer clothes and get to bed early!
Sometimes it feels more like this….
Don’t forget to make everything the kids do outside of school hours super intense, super competitive and hyper-organized! Don’t leave any time for silliness or fun!
I’m so over it. My kids are quite spread out in age so I’ve been observing parents ruin all kinds of sports, camps, piano recitals, dance practices, birthday parties and special school events for the last decade. I volunteer a lot in the community and school and my husband is on City Council so we are always running into minor controversies, flare-ups and dramas involving children’s activities in our small town.
Part of the problem is that, like every community, we are made up of people who abhor each other’s politics and whenever there is a disagreement about a playground or a new basketball program or a concession stand people start to take Blue vs Red sides.
People like my husband and I, who favor strong public Rec programs focused on serving the most possible kids in the community, are ‘the enemy’ to those parents who prefer an elite clique of private club teams that leaves (and often pushes) many kids out.
This year we’re trying to stop the high school boy’s basketball coach who, along with his small army of Basketball Dads, wants the public Rec Board to approve our community joining a new, much more competitive league that divides up the boys by ‘talent’ into A and B teams starting in FOURTH GRADE.
So the TEN YEAR OLDs who aren’t ‘good enough’ to play on the A team will be sent to the ‘Development League.’ Translation: they’ll all go to elementary school the next day able to say confidently who ‘sucks’ and who doesn’t and doubtful many boys on the Development Team or their parents will be very excited to re-join next year.
Equal playing time, something youth sports should embrace until 7th or 8th grade in my opinion, gives all the kids time to develop at their particular sport. It teaches the ‘better’ players to care about their team-mates development and to work together for a common goal.
We’ve heard some incredible bullshit from youth coaches...how hard it is to coach the kids who aren’t as ‘good’ and how they ‘hold the better players back.’ How it is actually ‘dangerous’ to allow the better players to be on the field with the ones who aren’t ‘as good’ because they might get hit by a ball. They feel it is OK for a 5th grader to sit on the bench the entire game waiting for some playing time and not get to play one minute because all the other boys were ‘better’ than him and they needed to win that game. That FIFTH GRADE game.
Winning really matters to these people, as does their status in the community as an All Star Athlete Family. And the Glory Days from HS are on emotional repeat. Don’t even get me started on small town football culture. It can be truly gross.
Now I do have inner turmoil judging these parents, as they are relating to their children and nurturing them in their own way. But I feel they are harming the community by excluding children who don’t throw a baseball or dribble a basketball very well. They make parents who can’t afford the best gear or the out of town tournaments feel insecure, embarrassed. Those are families who need public rec for their kids to have a place to exercise, connect with the community and, oh yeah, have fun.
Many parents have gotten off the sidelines (sorry, I couldn’t help it) to say they agree with us.
I think about the single parents, who might not have time to throw the baseball every night before dinner but who sign their kid up hoping he or she will learn to play a little better, get to have some fun with their classmates, maybe gain some confidence and have fun. I think about grandparents raising a grandchild, needing that outlet and activity for that kid to connect to the community and get some fresh air and have fun. I think about the kid who has a tough home life, who might have a positive role model in their coach.
We need public rec options that are low key and inclusive. We need to elect local officials committed to those things. We need parents to volunteer to coach even when it might be out of their comfort zone to counteract the aggressive focused-on-winning parents who often get involved in kids sports as organizers. And we need to remember games are supposed to be FUN.