Are travel sports bad for community?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, people, especially kids are so overscheduled these days.

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Travel sports are bad for community, but in a different way. The "pay to play" phenomena does not allow for natural talent development for those who don't have the means to participate.

Ppp here- that is a whole other discussion— and you aren’t wrong.

[Anonymous]

There have always been kids who do a high level sport that involves practices kind of far from home with kids who don’t live nearby, and lots of traveling to competitions. What has changed is the age at which it all starts and how involved the parents are. Because it starts so young now, the parents have to be more involved. The whole family didn’t used to go. It would be the kids traveling with the coach or maybe one parent would drive several kids because they were old enough to be more independent. This gave parents time to stay around the neighborhood to doing their own thing and interacting with neighbors etc. In this era of intensive parenting you have parents who attend every practice and the whole family goes to competitions. It’s also the intersection of immigrant cultures with the travel sports. The immigrant families tend to all do things together so if one kid is in a sport then they will all attend together. This takes entire families away from the local community in a way that didn’t used to happen.

But honestly I don’t think any of this matters. Smartphones and online shopping/food ordering/everything have killed our sense of community more than any sport.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get you guys at all. My kid plays on a serious travel team. She’s a 7th grader, so not in HS, but so far the only thing she missed all year was a sleepover- and she went to the event and stayed until 10 pm. But so did two other girls who do similar sports. She also plays 3 sports at her middle school and is in the play.

There are 5 girls on the team who live in our neighborhood and most played together during the rec years then moved up. Additionally, she’s been to bat mitzvahs for 3 teammates this year and had amazing experiences at away tournaments hanging with her team. The parents are also very close- helping each other with everything from carpools to dog sitting. If that’s not community, I don’t know what is.

Does her sport take up a lot of time? Sure. Is it time she’d spend selling lemonade on the block? No. She’s got three great communities- school, the neighborhood, and her sport. As long as she loves doing it, the only downside I see is incurred by us parents doing the driving and paying. But we go into that with eyes wide open.

But don’t you think all the time you’re wasting taking your kid to tournaments and what not is time that could be used instead to grow better local communities

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get you guys at all. My kid plays on a serious travel team. She’s a 7th grader, so not in HS, but so far the only thing she missed all year was a sleepover- and she went to the event and stayed until 10 pm. But so did two other girls who do similar sports. She also plays 3 sports at her middle school and is in the play.

There are 5 girls on the team who live in our neighborhood and most played together during the rec years then moved up. Additionally, she’s been to bat mitzvahs for 3 teammates this year and had amazing experiences at away tournaments hanging with her team. The parents are also very close- helping each other with everything from carpools to dog sitting. If that’s not community, I don’t know what is.

Does her sport take up a lot of time? Sure. Is it time she’d spend selling lemonade on the block? No. She’s got three great communities- school, the neighborhood, and her sport. As long as she loves doing it, the only downside I see is incurred by us parents doing the driving and paying. But we go into that with eyes wide open.

But don’t you think all the time you’re wasting taking your kid to tournaments and what not is time that could be used instead to grow better local communities

I’m not sure why you think it’s a zero sum game?

We’ve run our kids to various games the past couple weekends, and also hung out with neighbors whose kids of different ages do not play sports. And we’ll do the same thing this weekend. And my kids spent time this afternoon hanging out with neighborhood friends who play in different clubs than they do. So I personally am having trouble finding truth in many of the assertions here. But if you dislike it, feel free to avoid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Travel sports are bad for community, but in a different way. The "pay to play" phenomena does not allow for natural talent development for those who don't have the means to participate.

Ppp here- that is a whole other discussion— and you aren’t wrong.

It creates a community of only the UMC and wealthy with economic barriers to entry. Maybe that’s what the parents want?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get you guys at all. My kid plays on a serious travel team. She’s a 7th grader, so not in HS, but so far the only thing she missed all year was a sleepover- and she went to the event and stayed until 10 pm. But so did two other girls who do similar sports. She also plays 3 sports at her middle school and is in the play.

There are 5 girls on the team who live in our neighborhood and most played together during the rec years then moved up. Additionally, she’s been to bat mitzvahs for 3 teammates this year and had amazing experiences at away tournaments hanging with her team. The parents are also very close- helping each other with everything from carpools to dog sitting. If that’s not community, I don’t know what is.

Does her sport take up a lot of time? Sure. Is it time she’d spend selling lemonade on the block? No. She’s got three great communities- school, the neighborhood, and her sport. As long as she loves doing it, the only downside I see is incurred by us parents doing the driving and paying. But we go into that with eyes wide open.

But don’t you think all the time you’re wasting taking your kid to tournaments and what not is time that could be used instead to grow better local communities

DP, to be honest I’m more worried about what’s best for my kid, not the nebulous concept of growing better local communities. My DD has neighborhood friends, club sport friends, school friends, summer swim friends. Some of these groups overlap and some don’t, but it’s the perfect mix for her. FWIW, her club sport friends are her best friends, they don’t have drama with each other and they support each other even though they compete against each other. I am so glad that my DD found her niche and her people with her sport.

[Anonymous]

I actually think that kids having more than one "community" of friends is pretty cool. What I worry about is kids being too busy. Do they ever get to just be kids and have fun with their friends? Having an activity they love I'd great, but do they have time for other things? Or can they entertain themselves without that activity. I think that's important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get you guys at all. My kid plays on a serious travel team. She’s a 7th grader, so not in HS, but so far the only thing she missed all year was a sleepover- and she went to the event and stayed until 10 pm. But so did two other girls who do similar sports. She also plays 3 sports at her middle school and is in the play.

There are 5 girls on the team who live in our neighborhood and most played together during the rec years then moved up. Additionally, she’s been to bat mitzvahs for 3 teammates this year and had amazing experiences at away tournaments hanging with her team. The parents are also very close- helping each other with everything from carpools to dog sitting. If that’s not community, I don’t know what is.

Does her sport take up a lot of time? Sure. Is it time she’d spend selling lemonade on the block? No. She’s got three great communities- school, the neighborhood, and her sport. As long as she loves doing it, the only downside I see is incurred by us parents doing the driving and paying. But we go into that with eyes wide open.

But don’t you think all the time you’re wasting taking your kid to tournaments and what not is time that could be used instead to grow better local communities

I’m not sure why you think it’s a zero sum game?

We’ve run our kids to various games the past couple weekends, and also hung out with neighbors whose kids of different ages do not play sports. And we’ll do the same thing this weekend. And my kids spent time this afternoon hanging out with neighborhood friends who play in different clubs than they do. So I personally am having trouble finding truth in many of the assertions here. But if you dislike it, feel free to avoid.

+1 So many assumptions here. My son plays his sport at a national level, is a travel sport athlete. He still hangs out with neighborhood kids, attends church quarterly, takes part in our cul de sac block party, goes to his friends’ bar mitzvahs. There’s this cliche advanced on DCUM that travel sport kids have no life outside their sport that is not our experience and not that of his friends’.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get you guys at all. My kid plays on a serious travel team. She’s a 7th grader, so not in HS, but so far the only thing she missed all year was a sleepover- and she went to the event and stayed until 10 pm. But so did two other girls who do similar sports. She also plays 3 sports at her middle school and is in the play.

There are 5 girls on the team who live in our neighborhood and most played together during the rec years then moved up. Additionally, she’s been to bat mitzvahs for 3 teammates this year and had amazing experiences at away tournaments hanging with her team. The parents are also very close- helping each other with everything from carpools to dog sitting. If that’s not community, I don’t know what is.

Does her sport take up a lot of time? Sure. Is it time she’d spend selling lemonade on the block? No. She’s got three great communities- school, the neighborhood, and her sport. As long as she loves doing it, the only downside I see is incurred by us parents doing the driving and paying. But we go into that with eyes wide open.

But don’t you think all the time you’re wasting taking your kid to tournaments and what not is time that could be used instead to grow better local communities

DP, to be honest I’m more worried about what’s best for my kid, not the nebulous concept of growing better local communities. My DD has neighborhood friends, club sport friends, school friends, summer swim friends. Some of these groups overlap and some don’t, but it’s the perfect mix for her. FWIW, her club sport friends are her best friends, they don’t have drama with each other and they support each other even though they compete against each other. I am so glad that my DD found her niche and her people with her sport.

These travel sports definitely encourage the what’s best for my kid and my kid only unless you’re doing something that keeps my kid in the game. Anecdotally we are creating more narcissists in each new generation of this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There have always been kids who do a high level sport that involves practices kind of far from home with kids who don’t live nearby, and lots of traveling to competitions. What has changed is the age at which it all starts and how involved the parents are. Because it starts so young now, the parents have to be more involved. The whole family didn’t used to go. It would be the kids traveling with the coach or maybe one parent would drive several kids because they were old enough to be more independent. This gave parents time to stay around the neighborhood to doing their own thing and interacting with neighbors etc. In this era of intensive parenting you have parents who attend every practice and the whole family goes to competitions. It’s also the intersection of immigrant cultures with the travel sports. The immigrant families tend to all do things together so if one kid is in a sport then they will all attend together. This takes entire families away from the local community in a way that didn’t used to happen.

But honestly I don’t think any of this matters. Smartphones and online shopping/food ordering/everything have killed our sense of community more than any sport.

Sure there have been high level athletes. However, 95% or more of the kids in travel aren’t at that high-level on existing travel teams. They are just players with wealthy parents trying to keep their kids from the unwashed masses. If they all stayed locally, they would develop the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There have always been kids who do a high level sport that involves practices kind of far from home with kids who don’t live nearby, and lots of traveling to competitions. What has changed is the age at which it all starts and how involved the parents are. Because it starts so young now, the parents have to be more involved. The whole family didn’t used to go. It would be the kids traveling with the coach or maybe one parent would drive several kids because they were old enough to be more independent. This gave parents time to stay around the neighborhood to doing their own thing and interacting with neighbors etc. In this era of intensive parenting you have parents who attend every practice and the whole family goes to competitions. It’s also the intersection of immigrant cultures with the travel sports. The immigrant families tend to all do things together so if one kid is in a sport then they will all attend together. This takes entire families away from the local community in a way that didn’t used to happen.

But honestly I don’t think any of this matters. Smartphones and online shopping/food ordering/everything have killed our sense of community more than any sport.

Sure there have been high level athletes. However, 95% or more of the kids in travel aren’t at that high-level on existing travel teams. They are just players with wealthy parents trying to keep their kids from the unwashed masses. If they all stayed locally, they would develop the same.

Agreed, but this would only work if almost all kids stayed out of travel and if rec would do some sort of draft or leveling of players. It’s hard when rec ends up being this hugely wide range of experience and skill level. It’s not fun for kids who have been playing a sport to be on a team where half of the kids have never played/don’t know how to do the basics. So people put their kids in travel and it’s a vicious cycle.

[Anonymous]

I love how everyone here thinks that it’s a black and white issue- it’s travel ball OR community.

Travel ball is not all year round. Nor is it all life long. Things change and adapt, interests grow and wane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There have always been kids who do a high level sport that involves practices kind of far from home with kids who don’t live nearby, and lots of traveling to competitions. What has changed is the age at which it all starts and how involved the parents are. Because it starts so young now, the parents have to be more involved. The whole family didn’t used to go. It would be the kids traveling with the coach or maybe one parent would drive several kids because they were old enough to be more independent. This gave parents time to stay around the neighborhood to doing their own thing and interacting with neighbors etc. In this era of intensive parenting you have parents who attend every practice and the whole family goes to competitions. It’s also the intersection of immigrant cultures with the travel sports. The immigrant families tend to all do things together so if one kid is in a sport then they will all attend together. This takes entire families away from the local community in a way that didn’t used to happen.

But honestly I don’t think any of this matters. Smartphones and online shopping/food ordering/everything have killed our sense of community more than any sport.

Sure there have been high level athletes. However, 95% or more of the kids in travel aren’t at that high-level on existing travel teams. They are just players with wealthy parents trying to keep their kids from the unwashed masses. If they all stayed locally, they would develop the same.

Agreed, but this would only work if almost all kids stayed out of travel and if rec would do some sort of draft or leveling of players. It’s hard when rec ends up being this hugely wide range of experience and skill level. It’s not fun for kids who have been playing a sport to be on a team where half of the kids have never played/don’t know how to do the basics. So people put their kids in travel and it’s a vicious cycle.

Not to mention a huge money grab. Do you know how much the owners/operators of your travel organization are making???? Big bucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There have always been kids who do a high level sport that involves practices kind of far from home with kids who don’t live nearby, and lots of traveling to competitions. What has changed is the age at which it all starts and how involved the parents are. Because it starts so young now, the parents have to be more involved. The whole family didn’t used to go. It would be the kids traveling with the coach or maybe one parent would drive several kids because they were old enough to be more independent. This gave parents time to stay around the neighborhood to doing their own thing and interacting with neighbors etc. In this era of intensive parenting you have parents who attend every practice and the whole family goes to competitions. It’s also the intersection of immigrant cultures with the travel sports. The immigrant families tend to all do things together so if one kid is in a sport then they will all attend together. This takes entire families away from the local community in a way that didn’t used to happen.

But honestly I don’t think any of this matters. Smartphones and online shopping/food ordering/everything have killed our sense of community more than any sport.

Sure there have been high level athletes. However, 95% or more of the kids in travel aren’t at that high-level on existing travel teams. They are just players with wealthy parents trying to keep their kids from the unwashed masses. If they all stayed locally, they would develop the same.

Agreed, but this would only work if almost all kids stayed out of travel and if rec would do some sort of draft or leveling of players. It’s hard when rec ends up being this hugely wide range of experience and skill level. It’s not fun for kids who have been playing a sport to be on a team where half of the kids have never played/don’t know how to do the basics. So people put their kids in travel and it’s a vicious cycle. [/quote]

Not to mention a huge money grab. Do you know how much the owners/operators of your travel organization are making???? Big bucks.

Yep. The bolded is the fix, but no one is willing to start the movement by keeping their kids in rec. Also, the varying levels of skill and experience is true with lower levels of travel as well, and you get to pay big $$$ for your kid to have a bad experience.