lack of volunteers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should hire a teenager to do their volunteer commitments if they don’t want to. I know a bunch of teenagers that would jump on timing a meet for babysitter type pay.

But really, it’s sad that people are so disengaged. We saw it in other sports too, we were always coaching rec teams.

If parents are willing to pay the fine instead of volunteering, why can't the teams do this? My kids have never done swim team and never will but if the pool was willing to pay them $15-20 an hour to work the snack bar or time the races, they would gladly do it.

The pools don’t run swim teams or meets. Volunteers do. Further, there is no money in summer swim team budgets to pay volunteers. A single meet requires 18 timers, several officials, multiple marshals, and an entire data/tables staff. At $20/hour pp, the cost would be in the thousands per meet.
Summer swim is volunteer-run. If you want to participate, you help. If you absolutely can’t, then sure, a family could choose to pay someone to volunteer on its behalf. But to suggest a pool or team could simply pay people for these roles is extremely unrealistic.

The first person is asking a fair question, and the second response actually highlights why the model needs to change.
If a single meet requires dozens of critical roles and cannot function without a huge unpaid labor force, then parents are not "volunteering" in the casual sense, they are staffing the operation. That is real labor.

The idea that there is "no money" is also a choice, not a law of nature. Budgets can be adjusted. Fees can be structured with volunteer credits, opt-out fees, sponsorships, paid core staff, or hybrid models where some roles are compensated and others remain volunteer. Many youth activities already do exactly that.

What has changed is family life. In many households, both parents work, schedules are packed, and free time is limited. Time has become more valuable than it was for prior generations. Paying a fee instead of giving hours is a rational tradeoff for many families.

And let's be honest, timing races, snack bars, data entry, marshaling kids, and meet logistics are operational jobs. Pretending those jobs must only be done for free because "that's how summer swim works" is outdated thinking.
If the program is valuable, then labor should be valued too.

I think most people understand that and that's why the fees to swim are relatively low. If people think money is tight now, they won't be able to afford swimming fees when all the operational labor expenses are included. In my experience swim clubs are upfront about the expectations of parents to make it happen. Why are people agreeing then reneging on their obligation? Stop signing up if making it happen isn't possible for your busy schedule. Cut the freeloading kids if their parents don't step up.

DP. It's terrible to punish kids for the acts of their parents. That mentality flies in the face of what youth sports is supposed to be about. Not every family can contribute in the same way. Some can contribute money but not time, some time but not money, some have difficulty contributing in either way. Why is swim so special, so differently situated, that it requires parents to literally run the meets when nearly every other sport has managed to handle games/meets/tournaments? It's really not. And even if it's true that "this is the way it's always been," it doesn't mean it needs to stay that way for all eternity. There is a documented problem occurring: fewer parents are willing or able to volunteer for various reasons. So why not figure out a better way?

My mom was a single working mom as a kid. We were poor. Was I “punished” because I didn’t even have swim lessons let alone on a swim team? Was I “punished” because she couldn’t afford after school activities or summer camps so my brother and I were latch key kids? Probably moreso than the average privileged DMV swim team kid. I spent time in creeks and at the library, I didn’t have a bad childhood despite being “punished” for being poor.

I’m sorry, but I don’t feel sorry for the privileged kids whose parents can’t make everything work. They aren’t entitled to every activity just because they want it. Parents do what they can to make things work and if they can’t volunteer for summer swim, then they’re not making it work. They can find another activity for their child. At our pool the heaviest volunteers are working parents. It’s an exhausting and intense 2 months, but we adjust for our kids. And if you can’t, that’s fine, but your kid isn’t entitled to be a part of it if you know the volunteer load beforehand and still sign them up knowing you won’t contribute.

What an inapt analogy. Sorry you were poor, but that doesn't mean that kids whose parents are busy shouldn't be able to participate in an activity that they want to and can pay for. Not every parent has capacity for more time, and preventing kids from swimming due to a requirement that parents give time for free (rather than paying someone to do a job) is absurd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't have respect for an activity that requires 36 parent volunteers to run a swim meet.

That’s fine. Then don’t sign your kids up for an activity you don’t respect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should hire a teenager to do their volunteer commitments if they don’t want to. I know a bunch of teenagers that would jump on timing a meet for babysitter type pay.

But really, it’s sad that people are so disengaged. We saw it in other sports too, we were always coaching rec teams.

If parents are willing to pay the fine instead of volunteering, why can't the teams do this? My kids have never done swim team and never will but if the pool was willing to pay them $15-20 an hour to work the snack bar or time the races, they would gladly do it.

The pools don’t run swim teams or meets. Volunteers do. Further, there is no money in summer swim team budgets to pay volunteers. A single meet requires 18 timers, several officials, multiple marshals, and an entire data/tables staff. At $20/hour pp, the cost would be in the thousands per meet.
Summer swim is volunteer-run. If you want to participate, you help. If you absolutely can’t, then sure, a family could choose to pay someone to volunteer on its behalf. But to suggest a pool or team could simply pay people for these roles is extremely unrealistic.

The first person is asking a fair question, and the second response actually highlights why the model needs to change.
If a single meet requires dozens of critical roles and cannot function without a huge unpaid labor force, then parents are not "volunteering" in the casual sense, they are staffing the operation. That is real labor.

The idea that there is "no money" is also a choice, not a law of nature. Budgets can be adjusted. Fees can be structured with volunteer credits, opt-out fees, sponsorships, paid core staff, or hybrid models where some roles are compensated and others remain volunteer. Many youth activities already do exactly that.

What has changed is family life. In many households, both parents work, schedules are packed, and free time is limited. Time has become more valuable than it was for prior generations. Paying a fee instead of giving hours is a rational tradeoff for many families.

And let's be honest, timing races, snack bars, data entry, marshaling kids, and meet logistics are operational jobs. Pretending those jobs must only be done for free because "that's how summer swim works" is outdated thinking.
If the program is valuable, then labor should be valued too.

I think most people understand that and that's why the fees to swim are relatively low. If people think money is tight now, they won't be able to afford swimming fees when all the operational labor expenses are included. In my experience swim clubs are upfront about the expectations of parents to make it happen. Why are people agreeing then reneging on their obligation? Stop signing up if making it happen isn't possible for your busy schedule. Cut the freeloading kids if their parents don't step up.

DP. It's terrible to punish kids for the acts of their parents. That mentality flies in the face of what youth sports is supposed to be about. Not every family can contribute in the same way. Some can contribute money but not time, some time but not money, some have difficulty contributing in either way. Why is swim so special, so differently situated, that it requires parents to literally run the meets when nearly every other sport has managed to handle games/meets/tournaments? It's really not. And even if it's true that "this is the way it's always been," it doesn't mean it needs to stay that way for all eternity. There is a documented problem occurring: fewer parents are willing or able to volunteer for various reasons. So why not figure out a better way?

My mom was a single working mom as a kid. We were poor. Was I “punished” because I didn’t even have swim lessons let alone on a swim team? Was I “punished” because she couldn’t afford after school activities or summer camps so my brother and I were latch key kids? Probably moreso than the average privileged DMV swim team kid. I spent time in creeks and at the library, I didn’t have a bad childhood despite being “punished” for being poor.

I’m sorry, but I don’t feel sorry for the privileged kids whose parents can’t make everything work. They aren’t entitled to every activity just because they want it. Parents do what they can to make things work and if they can’t volunteer for summer swim, then they’re not making it work. They can find another activity for their child. At our pool the heaviest volunteers are working parents. It’s an exhausting and intense 2 months, but we adjust for our kids. And if you can’t, that’s fine, but your kid isn’t entitled to be a part of it if you know the volunteer load beforehand and still sign them up knowing you won’t contribute.

What an inapt analogy. Sorry you were poor, but that doesn't mean that kids whose parents are busy shouldn't be able to participate in an activity that they want to and can pay for. Not every parent has capacity for more time, and preventing kids from swimming due to a requirement that parents give time for free (rather than paying someone to do a job) is absurd.

Keeping kids off a summer swim team
does not keep a kid from swimming. Sign them up for swim lessons and a team that work on your own schedule.

If both parents are so busy you can’t take the time to volunteer, then you probably both have high paying jobs. You probably have the capacity to hire someone to take your place for a few hours, no?

We all have the same 24 hours. If you want a ton of money so you can travel and have a nice house then something has to give, and it shouldn’t be at the expense of someone who makes it work because they prioritize it differently for their own family, not yours.

[Anonymous]

There seems to be a lot of people invested in the status quo rather than finding solutions to address the lack of volunteers.

[Anonymous]

Our team sends a weekly spreadsheet to the entire team that includes each family’s volunteer hour requirement, the jobs they worked, along with the hours earned for each of those jobs.

If you fail to earn your required hours then the credit card you put on file during registration is automatically charged $500. If a second summer passes with you failing to volunteer, you are charged again and you can’t register your kid to swim the following summer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should hire a teenager to do their volunteer commitments if they don’t want to. I know a bunch of teenagers that would jump on timing a meet for babysitter type pay.

But really, it’s sad that people are so disengaged. We saw it in other sports too, we were always coaching rec teams.

If parents are willing to pay the fine instead of volunteering, why can't the teams do this? My kids have never done swim team and never will but if the pool was willing to pay them $15-20 an hour to work the snack bar or time the races, they would gladly do it.

The pools don’t run swim teams or meets. Volunteers do. Further, there is no money in summer swim team budgets to pay volunteers. A single meet requires 18 timers, several officials, multiple marshals, and an entire data/tables staff. At $20/hour pp, the cost would be in the thousands per meet.
Summer swim is volunteer-run. If you want to participate, you help. If you absolutely can’t, then sure, a family could choose to pay someone to volunteer on its behalf. But to suggest a pool or team could simply pay people for these roles is extremely unrealistic.

The first person is asking a fair question, and the second response actually highlights why the model needs to change.
If a single meet requires dozens of critical roles and cannot function without a huge unpaid labor force, then parents are not "volunteering" in the casual sense, they are staffing the operation. That is real labor.

The idea that there is "no money" is also a choice, not a law of nature. Budgets can be adjusted. Fees can be structured with volunteer credits, opt-out fees, sponsorships, paid core staff, or hybrid models where some roles are compensated and others remain volunteer. Many youth activities already do exactly that.

What has changed is family life. In many households, both parents work, schedules are packed, and free time is limited. Time has become more valuable than it was for prior generations. Paying a fee instead of giving hours is a rational tradeoff for many families.

And let's be honest, timing races, snack bars, data entry, marshaling kids, and meet logistics are operational jobs. Pretending those jobs must only be done for free because "that's how summer swim works" is outdated thinking.
If the program is valuable, then labor should be valued too.

I think most people understand that and that's why the fees to swim are relatively low. If people think money is tight now, they won't be able to afford swimming fees when all the operational labor expenses are included. In my experience swim clubs are upfront about the expectations of parents to make it happen. Why are people agreeing then reneging on their obligation? Stop signing up if making it happen isn't possible for your busy schedule. Cut the freeloading kids if their parents don't step up.

DP. It's terrible to punish kids for the acts of their parents. That mentality flies in the face of what youth sports is supposed to be about. Not every family can contribute in the same way. Some can contribute money but not time, some time but not money, some have difficulty contributing in either way. Why is swim so special, so differently situated, that it requires parents to literally run the meets when nearly every other sport has managed to handle games/meets/tournaments? It's really not. And even if it's true that "this is the way it's always been," it doesn't mean it needs to stay that way for all eternity. There is a documented problem occurring: fewer parents are willing or able to volunteer for various reasons. So why not figure out a better way?

My mom was a single working mom as a kid. We were poor. Was I “punished” because I didn’t even have swim lessons let alone on a swim team? Was I “punished” because she couldn’t afford after school activities or summer camps so my brother and I were latch key kids? Probably moreso than the average privileged DMV swim team kid. I spent time in creeks and at the library, I didn’t have a bad childhood despite being “punished” for being poor.

I’m sorry, but I don’t feel sorry for the privileged kids whose parents can’t make everything work. They aren’t entitled to every activity just because they want it. Parents do what they can to make things work and if they can’t volunteer for summer swim, then they’re not making it work. They can find another activity for their child. At our pool the heaviest volunteers are working parents. It’s an exhausting and intense 2 months, but we adjust for our kids. And if you can’t, that’s fine, but your kid isn’t entitled to be a part of it if you know the volunteer load beforehand and still sign them up knowing you won’t contribute.

What an inapt analogy. Sorry you were poor, but that doesn't mean that kids whose parents are busy shouldn't be able to participate in an activity that they want to and can pay for. Not every parent has capacity for more time, and preventing kids from swimming due to a requirement that parents give time for free (rather than paying someone to do a job) is absurd.

Then pay someone to do your part since money isn't the problem. But if you can't fulfill your obligation, that you agreed to do at the start doe mean your kid can't participate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There seems to be a lot of people invested in the status quo rather than finding solutions to address the lack of volunteers.

The solution is the moochers stop signing up. Problem solved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There seems to be a lot of people invested in the status quo rather than finding solutions to address the lack of volunteers.

The solution is the moochers stop signing up. Problem solved.

Exactly- this is not an issue unique to swimmers or even sports. We raised a generation of individuals who received trophies for not even showing up, and were coddled and praised all the way through college and beyond. These individuals are now parents and think everyone is there to serve them while they do squat.

When people decide to have children they used to recognize it came with making sacrifices, whether it’s making less money for a more family friendly job, or not participating in activities you can’t fully commit to.

Parents who think it’s okay to disengage while other parents pick up their volunteer jobs are entitled a-holz.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should hire a teenager to do their volunteer commitments if they don’t want to. I know a bunch of teenagers that would jump on timing a meet for babysitter type pay.

But really, it’s sad that people are so disengaged. We saw it in other sports too, we were always coaching rec teams.

If parents are willing to pay the fine instead of volunteering, why can't the teams do this? My kids have never done swim team and never will but if the pool was willing to pay them $15-20 an hour to work the snack bar or time the races, they would gladly do it.

The pools don’t run swim teams or meets. Volunteers do. Further, there is no money in summer swim team budgets to pay volunteers. A single meet requires 18 timers, several officials, multiple marshals, and an entire data/tables staff. At $20/hour pp, the cost would be in the thousands per meet.
Summer swim is volunteer-run. If you want to participate, you help. If you absolutely can’t, then sure, a family could choose to pay someone to volunteer on its behalf. But to suggest a pool or team could simply pay people for these roles is extremely unrealistic.

The first person is asking a fair question, and the second response actually highlights why the model needs to change.
If a single meet requires dozens of critical roles and cannot function without a huge unpaid labor force, then parents are not "volunteering" in the casual sense, they are staffing the operation. That is real labor.

The idea that there is "no money" is also a choice, not a law of nature. Budgets can be adjusted. Fees can be structured with volunteer credits, opt-out fees, sponsorships, paid core staff, or hybrid models where some roles are compensated and others remain volunteer. Many youth activities already do exactly that.

What has changed is family life. In many households, both parents work, schedules are packed, and free time is limited. Time has become more valuable than it was for prior generations. Paying a fee instead of giving hours is a rational tradeoff for many families.

And let's be honest, timing races, snack bars, data entry, marshaling kids, and meet logistics are operational jobs. Pretending those jobs must only be done for free because "that's how summer swim works" is outdated thinking.
If the program is valuable, then labor should be valued too.

I think most people understand that and that's why the fees to swim are relatively low. If people think money is tight now, they won't be able to afford swimming fees when all the operational labor expenses are included. In my experience swim clubs are upfront about the expectations of parents to make it happen. Why are people agreeing then reneging on their obligation? Stop signing up if making it happen isn't possible for your busy schedule. Cut the freeloading kids if their parents don't step up.

DP. It's terrible to punish kids for the acts of their parents. That mentality flies in the face of what youth sports is supposed to be about. Not every family can contribute in the same way. Some can contribute money but not time, some time but not money, some have difficulty contributing in either way. Why is swim so special, so differently situated, that it requires parents to literally run the meets when nearly every other sport has managed to handle games/meets/tournaments? It's really not. And even if it's true that "this is the way it's always been," it doesn't mean it needs to stay that way for all eternity. There is a documented problem occurring: fewer parents are willing or able to volunteer for various reasons. So why not figure out a better way?

My mom was a single working mom as a kid. We were poor. Was I “punished” because I didn’t even have swim lessons let alone on a swim team? Was I “punished” because she couldn’t afford after school activities or summer camps so my brother and I were latch key kids? Probably moreso than the average privileged DMV swim team kid. I spent time in creeks and at the library, I didn’t have a bad childhood despite being “punished” for being poor.

I’m sorry, but I don’t feel sorry for the privileged kids whose parents can’t make everything work. They aren’t entitled to every activity just because they want it. Parents do what they can to make things work and if they can’t volunteer for summer swim, then they’re not making it work. They can find another activity for their child. At our pool the heaviest volunteers are working parents. It’s an exhausting and intense 2 months, but we adjust for our kids. And if you can’t, that’s fine, but your kid isn’t entitled to be a part of it if you know the volunteer load beforehand and still sign them up knowing you won’t contribute.

What an inapt analogy. Sorry you were poor, but that doesn't mean that kids whose parents are busy shouldn't be able to participate in an activity that they want to and can pay for. Not every parent has capacity for more time, and preventing kids from swimming due to a requirement that parents give time for free (rather than paying someone to do a job) is absurd.

It's a good analogy. Volunteering is part of the cost of summer swim. Just like there are kids whose families can't afford or choose not to pay the monetary cost of many activities, there are kids whose parents can't afford or choose not to do the volunteering that is the cost of summer swim. I'm not sure why the former seems fine with you, but the latter is "absurd". Why is the kid whose parents are too busy to volunteer (despite, often, being present at the meet cheering for their child) more deserving of charity than the kid whose parents are "too poor" for travel soccer or whatever?

I will note that, at least at my team, no one objects if you find, hire, and pay someone to do your job. We have families who have their nanny do the Costco run, or hire a teenager to help with set up or clean up, or whatever. That's fine. What people object to is the idea that other people's children should give up parts of the activity that they love, like coaching, or cheering on the little kids. Or that the people who are volunteering should take on the huge task of finding and organizing volunteers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our team sends a weekly spreadsheet to the entire team that includes each family’s volunteer hour requirement, the jobs they worked, along with the hours earned for each of those jobs.

If you fail to earn your required hours then the credit card you put on file during registration is automatically charged $500. If a second summer passes with you failing to volunteer, you are charged again and you can’t register your kid to swim the following summer.

This is brilliant. And really, probably close to what it costs to actually hire someone to fulfill the commitment. If I have a choice between volunteering 20 hours and paying $250, I’m paying $250 every time. But no one is going to work that job for $12.50/hr, let alone what you’d need to pay as an employer to actually arrive at a total cost of $12.50/hr.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our team sends a weekly spreadsheet to the entire team that includes each family’s volunteer hour requirement, the jobs they worked, along with the hours earned for each of those jobs.

If you fail to earn your required hours then the credit card you put on file during registration is automatically charged $500. If a second summer passes with you failing to volunteer, you are charged again and you can’t register your kid to swim the following summer.

This is brilliant. And really, probably close to what it costs to actually hire someone to fulfill the commitment. If I have a choice between volunteering 20 hours and paying $250, I’m paying $250 every time. But no one is going to work that job for $12.50/hr, let alone what you’d need to pay as an employer to actually arrive at a total cost of $12.50/hr.

Then why pretend to have people “volunteer “ to do things they won’t do? Why not just charge them up front so the volunteer sheet for a particular event shows who will actually show up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There seems to be a lot of people invested in the status quo rather than finding solutions to address the lack of volunteers.

If you go watch your kids at the swim meet, then you have the time to volunteer. Kill two birds with one stone, and volunteer while you're there anyway. When it's your kid's time to race you can take a quick break then get back to it. There are always plenty of spectators at the meets, so it's not like people are as busy as they claim.

[Anonymous]

I'm not signing my kids up for swim team - so saying I don't respect an activity that somehow needs 36 parent volunteers to run a swim meet -- that's just information in case you'd like to know -- you all sound crazy needing so many volunteers.

If the system doesn't work -- change it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not signing my kids up for swim team - so saying I don't respect an activity that somehow needs 36 parent volunteers to run a swim meet -- that's just information in case you'd like to know -- you all sound crazy needing so many volunteers.

If the system doesn't work -- change it.

You are stupid and do not understand the sport. It takes many volunteers because it is a time based sport and there are a lot of competitors and a lot of moving parts. For example: If there are not people helping line the kids up for their heats, the meet would take 3x as long due to long pauses between heats while everyone waited for kids to get to their spots. If there were only one timer per lane, some kids wouldn’t get a result if the stopwatch were to malfunction. Having two timers (one from each team) also reduces potential bias. If there weren’t runners grabbing the time cards after each event and taking them to the results table, the timers would have to do it, thus leading to a delay before the next heat.

These are just a few examples. The number of volunteers is the reason the meets aren’t even longer. If your pea brain can’t grasp that, don’t sign up for swim team. Nobody wants you there with your attitude.

[Anonymous]

[twitter]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[b]People should hire a teenager to do their volunteer commitments if they don’t want to. I know a bunch of teenagers that would jump on timing a meet for babysitter type pay.

But really, it’s sad that people are so disengaged. We saw it in other sports too, we were always coaching rec teams.

If parents are willing to pay the fine instead of volunteering, why can't the teams do this? My kids have never done swim team and never will but if the pool was willing to pay them $15-20 an hour to work the snack bar or time the races, they would gladly do it.

The pools don’t run swim teams or meets. Volunteers do. Further, there is no money in summer swim team budgets to pay volunteers. A single meet requires 18 timers, several officials, multiple marshals, and an entire data/tables staff. At $20/hour pp, the cost would be in the thousands per meet.
Summer swim is volunteer-run. If you want to participate, you help. If you absolutely can’t, then sure, a family could choose to pay someone to volunteer on its behalf. But to suggest a pool or team could simply pay people for these roles is extremely unrealistic.

The first person is asking a fair question, and the second response actually highlights why the model needs to change.
If a single meet requires dozens of critical roles and cannot function without a huge unpaid labor force, then parents are not "volunteering" in the casual sense, they are staffing the operation. That is real labor.

The idea that there is "no money" is also a choice, not a law of nature. Budgets can be adjusted. Fees can be structured with volunteer credits, opt-out fees, sponsorships, paid core staff, or hybrid models where some roles are compensated and others remain volunteer. Many youth activities already do exactly that.

What has changed is family life. In many households, both parents work, schedules are packed, and free time is limited. Time has become more valuable than it was for prior generations. Paying a fee instead of giving hours is a rational tradeoff for many families.

And let's be honest, timing races, snack bars, data entry, marshaling kids, and meet logistics are operational jobs. Pretending those jobs must only be done for free because "that's how summer swim works" is outdated thinking.
If the program is valuable, then labor should be valued too.

I think most people understand that and that's why the fees to swim are relatively low. If people think money is tight now, they won't be able to afford swimming fees when all the operational labor expenses are included. In my experience swim clubs are upfront about the expectations of parents to make it happen. Why are people agreeing then reneging on their obligation? Stop signing up if making it happen isn't possible for your busy schedule. Cut the freeloading kids if their parents don't step up.

DP. It's terrible to punish kids for the acts of their parents. That mentality flies in the face of what youth sports is supposed to be about. Not every family can contribute in the same way. Some can contribute money but not time, some time but not money, some have difficulty contributing in either way. Why is swim so special, so differently situated, that it requires parents to literally run the meets when nearly every other sport has managed to handle games/meets/tournaments? It's really not. And even if it's true that "this is the way it's always been," it doesn't mean it needs to stay that way for all eternity. There is a documented problem occurring: fewer parents are willing or able to volunteer for various reasons. So why not figure out a better way?

My mom was a single working mom as a kid. We were poor. Was I “punished” because I didn’t even have swim lessons let alone on a swim team? Was I “punished” because she couldn’t afford after school activities or summer camps so my brother and I were latch key kids? Probably moreso than the average privileged DMV swim team kid. I spent time in creeks and at the library, I didn’t have a bad childhood despite being “punished” for being poor.

I’m sorry, but I don’t feel sorry for the privileged kids whose parents can’t make everything work. They aren’t entitled to every activity just because they want it. Parents do what they can to make things work and if they can’t volunteer for summer swim, then they’re not making it work. They can find another activity for their child. At our pool the heaviest volunteers are working parents. It’s an exhausting and intense 2 months, but we adjust for our kids. And if you can’t, that’s fine, but your kid isn’t entitled to be a part of it if you know the volunteer load beforehand and still sign them up knowing you won’t contribute.

What an inapt analogy. Sorry you were poor, but [/b]that doesn't mean that kids whose parents are busy shouldn't be able to participate in an activity that they want to and can pay for[b]. Not every parent has capacity for more time, and preventing kids from swimming due to a requirement that parents give time for free (rather than paying someone to do a job) is absurd.

Yes, that’s exactly what it means. The volunteer requirement is made very clear up front. Don’t sign up if you can’t make that part work. It’s not a right to be on a swim team. You are an entitled person likely raising entitled children. Go sign your kids up for a sport where you can sit on your butt and criticize the people working with your children, or just drop them off and come back so you can go do your oh so important job. That sounds like a better fit for you.