Travel Sports - "They Love It"
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Anonymous
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Seems like most of our friends and acquaintances whose kids play travel sports are always saying "They Love It" after describing a three day weekend of driving a total of 800 miles, eating crappy fast food in the car three meals a day and playing in 3 different tournament games. It always sounds very defensive as if they're trying to justify spending a weekend in this fashion.
I know some of these kids might legit love doing this for the love of the game, but how many others are simply being pushed to do all this by their parents? Travel sports seem to be getting completely out of control, and it's hard to believe that so many families are happy to be spending their weekends this way. I feel like parents we've known for years become completely obsessed with these travel leagues once they join, and the sport becomes their life. Anyone else get this "They Love It" statement from a travel sports parent? |
Anonymous
So your kid is not athletic and can't make a travel team you say? |
Anonymous
Typical azzhole comment insulting children rather than an adult poster. But seriously, OP, you sorta deserve it for starting yet another thread about travel sports. Yes, the parents are awful. We know. |
Anonymous
| My kids have played some travel sports, but we have intentionally limited them because they are so expensive and miserable for the parents and siblings. But my kids always really really loved when they were the one competing in the tournaments. |
Anonymous
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I realize this is a troll post, but I can’t help myself.
OP, imagine whatever activity your kid likes best. They get the opportunity to do it three or four times in a single weekend with a dozen or so friends, plus a couple of group meals, and ideally a stay in a hotel with an indoor pool where they get to spend evenings together. Is it really that hard to understand that kids might really enjoy something like that? |
Anonymous
A kid gets to hang out in a hotel with a bunch of their friends, swim, eat pizza, and do an activity they love 3-4 times? Yah, crazy to think a kid would love that. |
Anonymous
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We do love it. My son is now 17 and I will miss it when he graduates. The fact is he lives and breathes soccer. It’s how he wants to spend his time. I know this because he has never once since he was 8 said he didn’t want to go to practice or a game even when his friends were attending a party or sleepover. He has driven the decision about playing year after year. Those long car rides are bonding time that would be nonexistent otherwise. Once kids hit middle school, they don’t want to hang with mom or dad and talk. But trapped in a car, it’s amazing how they open up. We talk about friend drama, school, girls, etc. Thanks to my son’s enthusiasm for the sport, I’ve come to enjoy watching soccer. Most of the parents on the sidelines are friendly and I enjoy chatting. The part I don’t love is when he plays in bad weather but if he’s not complaining I don’t mind.
Lots of kids choose to focus intensely on an activity. For me, soccer is more enjoyable than other activities he could have chosen. My nieces did theater and I didn’t love sitting through those productions. My SIL had to often sit through the same production 4-6 times. And schlep to and from daily rehearsals for months. I know other kids who focus on robotics or debate or whatever else. |
Anonymous
| The ones I know it is more about the socialization for kid & parents. The parents have money so it is nice hotels, nice meals, lots of alcohol for parents. |
Anonymous
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Not sure if this is a troll post or not, but I will say that our son did club baseball for several years, and it really strained our family calendar and resources to the max. I understand that we chose to let him do it, but looking back, I'm not sure it was worth it.
Every weekend and vacation was almost exclusively dedicated to baseball, and while we did become friendly with other families on the team, they seemed to be convenience friendships as opposed to natural bonds. Many of the other parents were also very intense about every aspect of what at the end of the day is a youth sport, and I think I was never 100% on board with that mindset. |
Anonymous
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I have a kid in college who played travel soccer starting at 8. She still talks about it being something she loved. She loved the friends (still friends with a group of them), she loved staying in hotels, she had fun at tournaments, she traveled internationally, and as she got older- she did college visits and had great coaches.
I get that it is hard to believe but kids do love it |
Anonymous
Sometimes kids love it because they love the sport. Sometimes they love it for the shared experience of traveling somewhere, staying in a hotel, playing in the hotel pool, and going out for burgers with their friends. I mean, I have fond memories of going on debate trips and choir trips and orchestra trips as a kid. We stayed in crappy holiday inns and ate McDonald’s. Those trips must have been terrible, but it was a highlight for me at the time. I have kids who travel for their sports because they really do need to travel to compete (rowing), but when they were younger and in travel soccer, I viewed it as similar to scouts. Be on a team, learn some skills, learn how to lose, learn how to persevere, have a few fun trips with friends. |
Anonymous
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Corporate training - that’s what it really is good for. Learn about extreme politics (at least in travel soccer)
Otherwise a complete and utter waste: should have stayed overseas where tactical skill is valued. So many charlatans in DMV making a killing for a college play that is largely dead - except for D3. (Which in my opinion ispointless except for top 1 or 2.) |
Anonymous
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My kid DOES love it. He doesn't care about the driving (2.5 hrs was the most and that was for a competition weekend). He sleeps, plays on his switch, draws on his drawing pad, etc. The crappy fast food he gets going to and from (not sure why you think it's 3 meals a day), he's thrilled about. Because that's the only time he gets it. Playing 3 games? He would play 10 if given the chance.
Then in between he gets to hang out with friends, play in a hotel pool, go out to dinner with friends, etc. Trust me, if DS didn't like it, we wouldn't do it. DH and I have many, many things we would rather be doing with our time and money. |
Anonymous
| We had a blast. Granted this was driving-distance-tournaments-five-or-six-times-a year-or-so, not the fly every weekend craziness. We had a huge amount of fun traveling together, and still joke about the disgusting crap from Arby’s she used to like to eat while we were on the road. We developed a number of inside jokes from things we’d seen along the way, for example, some creepy wooden teeth that served as a dentist sign somewhere out in the Maryland hinterlands, which we passed a few times. Saw a lot of places we’d otherwise never have gone to. Is this *so* hard to understand? We had a hoot. |
Anonymous
What places did you go and did the destinations improve each year? My son really wants to do travel soccer, but he’s too young. A friend with older kids describes it as staying in a Hampton Inn in nowhere VA each weekend. Now, if my kid will have tournaments in Bermuda each year, I’ll get on board! |