Travel Sports - "They Love It"
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Anonymous
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I’m a travel sports parent. I don’t love it, or even like it. But my kid loves baseball and wants to play in college, so I go with the flow.
On the bright side, I get to spend a lot more time with my teen than I would if we were home on one of those weekends. He will be graduating from high school next year, so I will take that even if I have to do it in Cortland, NY. |
Anonymous
| It’s the parents who complain about it that are annoying. |
Anonymous
+1. My DD loves it and she is willing to wake up at 5-6 AM during weekends to make it on the court and play. You cannot get her out of bed before 9 or 10 AM during non-tournament weekends. Do we love it? Hell no! We are tired like dogs and we watch her lose most of her games. We are trying to push the idea that she must work harder to improve her game (strength, agility, endurance) if we are to continue this non-sense. But she is not that interested in this aspect... |
Anonymous
| Of course they like it. All that time, money and attention lavished on them so they can be entertained and play. Who wouldn’t? |
Anonymous
| OP, you won’t get an honest answer here, where every kid is 99th percentile, 1600 SAT, headed to top schools etc. But after listening to several podcasts on youth sports, and reading books about it. Here is my take..Most families do it because others do it else they deal with FOMO. Travel sports is really hard for families. Leads to overuse injuries, less unstructured free play for kids, stress, etc. Most families making the decision to play travel sports and spending time and money will never admit that they don’t love it. |
Anonymous
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Here’s how it is OP. I thought what you are saying for years.
My oldest kid didn’t care about sports that much. Had a passion for a different activity. Me=those travel sports people are nuts. The youngest comes along and we never even considered travel sports during elementary. She didn’t ask. We didn’t offer. Would never. At some point she starts to really love the sport. She practices outside of games and practice regularly at her own motivation. She is clearly good at it. She finds rec frustrating. Crappy fields. Not great level of play. Teammate ms who don’t care or even bother to show up half the time. We let her try out for travel for middle school and after the first session she walks off the field BEAMING. And here we are Memorial Day weekend at a tournament. So that’s how it happens for some people. |
Anonymous
I agree with you op, of course they'll say they love it. They'll never say that they're making their kids do it all and the kids don't actually want to. |
Anonymous
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My DC’s friend does year round swim team plus a summer team. His mom says the kid is really good at it and he enjoys it. Overheard my DC talking to his friend about it.. friend said ‘i hate it and its not fun at all’. My DC asked him why he does it then. He replied because my parents make me do it.
We know several kids like that. Other ones who burnt out and hate their sport now. Some who went to college for their sport and quit within a year because they hated it so much. So don’t believe when parents say ‘they love it so much’. I am sure some small percentage of kids do love their sport enough to benefit from travel sports experience but majority do not. |
Anonymous
| PP here. Travel sport has also become a status thing. |
Anonymous
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NP. My older kids are in college (one now playing college). My youngest is finishing up and is a college recruit, but may decide to play club only. I’m already sad about the end of travel. I loved it, and the kids loved it. They still talk fondly about the trips.
But I rarely stayed at places like Motel 6 or whatever, admittedly. I don’t like cheap hotels. |
Anonymous
I don’t believe this, as someone around a lot of college athletes. Almost none quit after the first year, and the ones that did, it was clearly due to injury. This is the kind of hyperbole common on DCUM but very unusual in real life. |
Anonymous
Mist if the kids are miserable. Just go watch a practice. |
Anonymous
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DS played travel baseball from 10u to 17u. At the younger ages it was mostly local travel, then more extensive travel when he was older. We really enjoyed it. I liked the other parents, and we became friends. It was built-in fun every weekend.
We used to joke that his little brothers spent all their younger years at baseball fields. Other families brought siblings and they all played together. It’s not for everyone. DS has a good friend who only played a few years. The mom hated and complained the whole time about how much she didn’t like it. While DS was recruited for college, he chose not to play. He really liked playing and the intensity of the sport at the travel level. He’s very driven in college. It’s just him. |
Anonymous
It’s pretty much this. We can afford it and I’m a middle age parent without much of a social life. I don’t care if my kid plays in college. That’s not the point. Think of this like a giant sleepover without the hassle of the sleepover. My daughter loves the sport and plays the games and then they all have fun in the indoor pool. Later they meet up somewhere for dinner. I’m at a table in a different part of the restaurant socializing with parents, because is this also my social life and like a mini vacation. It’s a nice hotel and a nice restaurant in a different city. Who cares if we are in a city or in the middle of nowhere. It’s a break from work and normal life. Yes. She loves it and I love it. But we both love travel and nice hotels. |
Anonymous
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It's a shorthand for:
"Everything is mostly crappy but the feeling of playing as a team and supporting each other is priceless." |