Families that never volunteer - swim team

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On college scholarships for sports and swimming, this article is _extremely_ eye-opening. For those in other professions, this comes from a high-level industry publication for higher education:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-myth-of-the-sports-scholarship/

I’ve seen that article before. It is definitely a worthwhile read especially for those with younger star swimmers. It does gloss over a bit that her achievements tapered when she hit her teen years (not atypical for a lot of kids whose body doesn’t develop the right way for swimming). It highlights her early achievements without talking much of her later years. If you look at her times, she was a consistent top 5 NVSL girl early on, but then fell off.

I don’t get comfortable families pushing kids for athletic scholarships if kids don’t plan to go to the Olympics. Let them enjoy college and have time for academics and other interests. Most don’t swim after college.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The entitlement on this thread is insane. The fact remains that summer swim teams rely on many volunteers throughout the season. If everyone said f it, this team takes the volunteer commitment too seriously, then it won’t happen. The team shuts down.

What’s wrong with showing and investing in your kids’ activities? Summer swim is a community thing, invest in it or don’t participate.

Always the same parents that step up to help. It’s a shame, what are you teaching your children?

So selfish.

It's a bandwidth thing. Thankfully our team isn't run by people like you.

Your team is run by volunteers like PP and me, and we all have important jobs and a million other things to do. The difference is that we invest our time and effort in our communities and our kids, while you don’t. Maybe get off DCUM and do something productive with your time.

I can't. I literally can't. I would if I could. Does attacking a struggling person make you feel better?

Please. Team rep here: we have a woman on our team whose husband traveled for work most of the time and she had two parents in hospice in her home with no backup help. If she volunteered, you can volunteer.

WOW! That poor woman was going thru it, and no one took a step back to say, hey, why don’t you sit this summer out, we’ve got your back and can cover your hours for you. That’s disgusting on your behalf, and not something you should be celebrating.

+1 this culture of celebrating parents having to constantly sacrifice for their kids is not great and holds women back. Parenting is hard enough without this crap. How about just one timer per lane and no ribbons, that would cut back on need for volunteers.

You can try to start your own league with this system. Personally I wouldn’t join.

This. If there is so much pent up demand for a league without volunteers, then PP would have no trouble finding pools eager to join

I'm the PP who thinks the summer leagues are inefficient and require way too many volunteers. We dropped summer swim in favor of just doing year round swim, which has much more reasonable requirements for parents. We did this at my kid's request because they preferred summer camps were not compatible with summer swim. Our first summer without swim team, I noticed DH and I were both a lot less stressed and our kids were happier too.

[Anonymous]

i am a team rep and we are considering imposing a volunteer fee for those parents who don’t help at all and are happy to leave their kids at practices (less than a camp). it’s gotten worse post pandemic and we are just done watching parents of younger kids not help while the same parents continue to step up we are doing without a few things this year bc no one would take it on. i’m sure the kids will be disappointed but i am not willing to pick up more slack than i do for 6 crazy weeks plus all the prep work etc

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:So that we are clear: some of you believe A meet (only) parents should volunteer more than required because their kids are in A meets and B meet parents should volunteer less? My kids don’t do a single B meet. If the A meet swimmer does no B meets, then the kids are all in the same number of meets. Regardless, at most pools the rule is: your kid is in the meet, you volunteer. That’s pretty fair, isn’t it? Kids who swim both A and B meets will cause more volunteer requirements.

It’s baffling why anyone is okay being so narcissistic that they disregard rules as being inapplicable to them because they (alone) can determine what is okay or not.

- former team rep

Our team is small so kids can do both an and b meets.

Huh? Size has nothing to do with it. It’s desire (do the kids want to do the meets). A meet swimmers can do the B meet if they want; many elect not to.

It depends on the team. Some only allow one meet.

And the ones that do that are usually the bigger teams, because they know if they let everyone swim B meet they won't finish at a halfway decent time.

Even with this rule half the time we still don’t finish at a decent time. I don’t think teams should allow 4 year olds to swim in B meets. Way too many heats of 8U free and back.

If a 4 year old can swim a lap yes they should. That’s what the b meet is for.

Sure if they can swim the length of a lap fine. Some teams have kids in B meets that clearly should not be swimming- Sleepy Hollow. They have coaches in the lanes with them and kick boards. Not a chance in hell am I volunteering for that meet. We show up an hour late and they’re still doing freestyle.

Which Sleepy Hollow?

I believe he/she/they meant Forest Hollow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On college scholarships for sports and swimming, this article is _extremely_ eye-opening. For those in other professions, this comes from a high-level industry publication for higher education:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-myth-of-the-sports-scholarship/

I’ve seen that article before. It is definitely a worthwhile read especially for those with younger star swimmers. It does gloss over a bit that her achievements tapered when she hit her teen years (not atypical for a lot of kids whose body doesn’t develop the right way for swimming). It highlights her early achievements without talking much of her later years. If you look at her times, she was a consistent top 5 NVSL girl early on, but then fell off.

I don’t get comfortable families pushing kids for athletic scholarships if kids don’t plan to go to the Olympics. Let them enjoy college and have time for academics and other interests. Most don’t swim after college.

DCUM: Summer swimming is so elitist, because all of those parents watching the meet are probably too busy to volunteer so asking them for a couple hours a week for six weeks is too much.

Also DCUM: Parents shouldn't even have to think about paying for college. It's so easy! The only thing that matters is Olympic level achievement!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The entitlement on this thread is insane. The fact remains that summer swim teams rely on many volunteers throughout the season. If everyone said f it, this team takes the volunteer commitment too seriously, then it won’t happen. The team shuts down.

What’s wrong with showing and investing in your kids’ activities? Summer swim is a community thing, invest in it or don’t participate.

Always the same parents that step up to help. It’s a shame, what are you teaching your children?

So selfish.

It's a bandwidth thing. Thankfully our team isn't run by people like you.

Your team is run by volunteers like PP and me, and we all have important jobs and a million other things to do. The difference is that we invest our time and effort in our communities and our kids, while you don’t. Maybe get off DCUM and do something productive with your time.

I can't. I literally can't. I would if I could. Does attacking a struggling person make you feel better?

Respectfully, getting out of your own head and helping others is exactly what you need.

What if it's not just in her head? You don't know.

You don't know if she has cancer, chronic daily migraines, somebody dying, a wrecking ball hit her house, divorcing, working 75 hours a week, tied up volunteering to give impoverished kids free surgeries to correct birth defects or representing battered women in court, or is some top secret CIA mixed martial arts lady in the middle of fighting some foreign adversary dude hanging off a balcony like Jason Bourne. You just don't know.

I've got one of those issues daily and have had multiple of those issues at one time and I find ways to volunteer at home. And, sure, its great to be a surgeon volunteering or a lawyer volunteering your time to help others, but that shouldn't be at the expense of your kids, who also need your attention and support and part of that is if you have them summer swim and the expectation is you help out there, since you are such a generous and giving person, no reason you cannot help out on swim team. Really, its less than two months.

Ok. Cases are in trial. Should I ask the judge for a continuance for summer swim team? Aside from death of parent, another parent just paralyzed weeks ago, my long covid, plus a wrecking ball to my house. Maybe that can get a continuance to show face to the swim mommies with nothing better to do then feign business and moral superiority?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On college scholarships for sports and swimming, this article is _extremely_ eye-opening. For those in other professions, this comes from a high-level industry publication for higher education:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-myth-of-the-sports-scholarship/

I’ve seen that article before. It is definitely a worthwhile read especially for those with younger star swimmers. It does gloss over a bit that her achievements tapered when she hit her teen years (not atypical for a lot of kids whose body doesn’t develop the right way for swimming). It highlights her early achievements without talking much of her later years. If you look at her times, she was a consistent top 5 NVSL girl early on, but then fell off.

I don’t get comfortable families pushing kids for athletic scholarships if kids don’t plan to go to the Olympics. Let them enjoy college and have time for academics and other interests. Most don’t swim after college.

DCUM: Summer swimming is so elitist, because all of those parents watching the meet are probably too busy to volunteer so asking them for a couple hours a week for six weeks is too much.

Also DCUM: Parents shouldn't even have to think about paying for college. It's so easy! The only thing that matters is Olympic level achievement!

Someone upthread posted they ask for 27 volunteer hours per swimmer. So you’re asking for 4.5 hours per week per swimmer? That seems ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The entitlement on this thread is insane. The fact remains that summer swim teams rely on many volunteers throughout the season. If everyone said f it, this team takes the volunteer commitment too seriously, then it won’t happen. The team shuts down.

What’s wrong with showing and investing in your kids’ activities? Summer swim is a community thing, invest in it or don’t participate.

Always the same parents that step up to help. It’s a shame, what are you teaching your children?

So selfish.

It's a bandwidth thing. Thankfully our team isn't run by people like you.

Your team is run by volunteers like PP and me, and we all have important jobs and a million other things to do. The difference is that we invest our time and effort in our communities and our kids, while you don’t. Maybe get off DCUM and do something productive with your time.

I can't. I literally can't. I would if I could. Does attacking a struggling person make you feel better?

Respectfully, getting out of your own head and helping others is exactly what you need.

What if it's not just in her head? You don't know.

You don't know if she has cancer, chronic daily migraines, somebody dying, a wrecking ball hit her house, divorcing, working 75 hours a week, tied up volunteering to give impoverished kids free surgeries to correct birth defects or representing battered women in court, or is some top secret CIA mixed martial arts lady in the middle of fighting some foreign adversary dude hanging off a balcony like Jason Bourne. You just don't know.

I've got one of those issues daily and have had multiple of those issues at one time and I find ways to volunteer at home. And, sure, its great to be a surgeon volunteering or a lawyer volunteering your time to help others, but that shouldn't be at the expense of your kids, who also need your attention and support and part of that is if you have them summer swim and the expectation is you help out there, since you are such a generous and giving person, no reason you cannot help out on swim team. Really, its less than two months.

Ok. Cases are in trial. Should I ask the judge for a continuance for summer swim team? Aside from death of parent, another parent just paralyzed weeks ago, my long covid, plus a wrecking ball to my house. Maybe that can get a continuance to show face to the swim mommies with nothing better to do then feign business and moral superiority?

A wrecking ball hit your house?

And you are in court on Saturday mornings?

I am very sorry about these things. I would have thought that the house hit by a wrecking ball would have made the news though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The entitlement on this thread is insane. The fact remains that summer swim teams rely on many volunteers throughout the season. If everyone said f it, this team takes the volunteer commitment too seriously, then it won’t happen. The team shuts down.

What’s wrong with showing and investing in your kids’ activities? Summer swim is a community thing, invest in it or don’t participate.

Always the same parents that step up to help. It’s a shame, what are you teaching your children?

So selfish.

It's a bandwidth thing. Thankfully our team isn't run by people like you.

Your team is run by volunteers like PP and me, and we all have important jobs and a million other things to do. The difference is that we invest our time and effort in our communities and our kids, while you don’t. Maybe get off DCUM and do something productive with your time.

I can't. I literally can't. I would if I could. Does attacking a struggling person make you feel better?

Respectfully, getting out of your own head and helping others is exactly what you need.

What if it's not just in her head? You don't know.

You don't know if she has cancer, chronic daily migraines, somebody dying, a wrecking ball hit her house, divorcing, working 75 hours a week, tied up volunteering to give impoverished kids free surgeries to correct birth defects or representing battered women in court, or is some top secret CIA mixed martial arts lady in the middle of fighting some foreign adversary dude hanging off a balcony like Jason Bourne. You just don't know.

I've got one of those issues daily and have had multiple of those issues at one time and I find ways to volunteer at home. And, sure, its great to be a surgeon volunteering or a lawyer volunteering your time to help others, but that shouldn't be at the expense of your kids, who also need your attention and support and part of that is if you have them summer swim and the expectation is you help out there, since you are such a generous and giving person, no reason you cannot help out on swim team. Really, its less than two months.

Ok. Cases are in trial. Should I ask the judge for a continuance for summer swim team? Aside from death of parent, another parent just paralyzed weeks ago, my long covid, plus a wrecking ball to my house. Maybe that can get a continuance to show face to the swim mommies with nothing better to do then feign business and moral superiority?

How is your kid getting to their swim meet, if you’re taking them and watching them swim you can hold a stopwatch and time while you’re at it. If your kid is an A meet swimmer, the meets are Saturday mornings from 9-12. The wrecking ball to your house is a new one, I did have a defense attorney once claim his house got hit by lightning to try and get a day of trial continuance though. Being a trial lawyer doesn’t make you special, the DC area is full them and we all manage to balance things. Your kid’s other parent can also feel free to step up at any time.

[Anonymous]

No activity should need 30+ volunteers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No activity should need 30+ volunteers

Swim meets are the only completely run parent sporting event. No paid referees, umpires, etc that are seen in other sports.

It takes a lot. On deck during the meet is one thing but the issue we have is setting up or cleaning up after and it’s always the same families helping.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No activity should need 30+ volunteers

You probably shouldn’t be involved in swim if this is how you think

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No activity should need 30+ volunteers

Sure. If we install touch pad sensors, we eliminates 20 jobs (18 timers + 2 head timers).

[Anonymous]

30 volunteers? SO inefficient. No wonder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:30 volunteers? SO inefficient. No wonder.

Have you tried to herd 30+ 7- and 8-year-olds who need to be in a specific spot at a specific time for a specific stroke? How would you do that efficiently?