I hate almost everything about summer swim team

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also dislike the culture among the parents. It feels a lot like a fraternity and sorority.

+ 1

I didn't realize joining a community pool was going to be like going back to high school, and that my perfectly nice non-team member child would be on the social dud list. This is just so fucking weird and cliched. Can't wait to get away from this $700 summer of watching a bunch of little snots and their nasty parents hang out together.

Ha. Thinking the same.
Going to the pool during "away" meets helps!

Would love names of pools where this is NOT the case.

This is definitely not the case at our pool. We are a non swim team family, although we will probably join next year. I have found everyone pretty friendly. I couldn't tell you who was on the swim team and who wasn't- other than I can kind of tell by who is there during away meets. We are at an inside the beltway pool.

[Anonymous]

I'm relieved our family moved to the DC area after our kids were too old to do swim team. The pool and swim culture here is just really foreign to me, and not in a good way. I suffered through some years of travel soccer, but swim team looks worse. Has this always been a "thing" in the DC suburbs or is it new to this generation of kids? Just curious how it got started and why it's so influential around here?

[Anonymous]

I think its intense for the parents of younger kids but they start to calm down and fade away when the kids are able to go to the practices and meets on their own. I only go if I have to volunteer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm relieved our family moved to the DC area after our kids were too old to do swim team. The pool and swim culture here is just really foreign to me, and not in a good way. I suffered through some years of travel soccer, but swim team looks worse. Has this always been a "thing" in the DC suburbs or is it new to this generation of kids? Just curious how it got started and why it's so influential around here?

Not from here and grew up on a river so no swim team! However, I think the moCo and nova teams have been around since the 70s at least? maybe 50's???Drive through any of the older neighborhoods around the beltway and all have pools/teams. The older families in our neighborhood all had 5 kids each in the 60s/70s- they tell us at community events! What do you think kids did all day back then but hang out at the pool. I am thinking this is where it came from.

However, why do you say the culture is weird? It is just an activity; has a very short season; practice every day, and two meets a week so people do spend time together. It also does things like pep rallys, bowling, swim-a - thon, year end banquet. Then it is over. I am very friendly to all / have a lot of fun chats for a few weeks and then many I wont see again until next summer. our DC 's love it, get exercise, and have some structure. I don' t get what's so bad about swim team. I guess any group can feel exclusive. When my DC did baseball, there was a group who seem to run everything, when one did choir same thing. That feeling of belonging can be had ( or not had with any activity.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think its intense for the parents of younger kids but they start to calm down and fade away when the kids are able to go to the practices and meets on their own. I only go if I have to volunteer.

I don't know..some of the parents of the older kids did some pretty heavy duty volunteering on our team. We all benefited from their many years of experience on the team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: However, I think the moCo and nova teams have been around since the 70s at least? maybe 50's???Drive through any of the older neighborhoods around the beltway and all have pools/teams. The older families in our neighborhood all had 5 kids each in the 60s/70s- they tell us at community events! What do you think kids did all day back then but hang out at the pool. I am thinking this is where it came from.

This rings true in our area and pool. Part of the tension that folks feel and hear about is that the pace of the short intense season is tough to swing in households with two parents working standard office hours. There's been quite a swing in work habits between the 60s/70s. Whether that's a good or bad thing is surely a topic for other threads, but at this point in swim season, many of us are ready to be done.

DH and one DC really really dig swim team. Other DC and I are, at best, neutral. I do the minimum amount of volunteering for swim; DH does more. But even so, we sort of check the box on swim team but up our game in other activities.

[Anonymous]

My daughter does year round swim plus summer swim. The pool is her/our life. It's just the way it is. It doesn't phase anyone in the household any more that one adult is at the pool for 4-6 hours on any given day.

Once your kid is a part of the team, you want to help out. You see other parents volunteering their time and wonder why should you not help. And then you get to socialize and meet other people during your volunteer time. It's not all drudgery. But yes, it does mean giving up your own personal free time.

I didn't volunteer for winter swim for a long time. It became very awkward to be the mom that didn't help out in some way. I couldn't imagine outsourcing running the meets. The number of people it would take would make swim team a very expensive activity. And then people would complain about the cost.

[Anonymous]

Our youngest will swim her last race in 2 weeks. That'll be our family's last meet in nearly 20 years of swim team. Yes, 20 years. Some summers I hated it, some summers I loved it. But, here's the thing -- all our kids, including 1 who went on to swim in college and 1 who almost never went to practice b/c he played travel baseball -- have really wonderful memories of those summers. And, even more important, those memories are a bond they share with one another.

So, my advice would be to find a volunteer job that you like, or at least, can tolerate. Even if the job itself is tedious (I'm talking to you, timers and concessions clean-up crew members), if you're working with folks you enjoy hanging out with, you'd be surprised at how much fun you can have. Split the job with your spouse, so that every other week you get to go to yoga or sleep-in or just read the paper on Saturday mornings. Really, for 6 weeks, you can handle that, right?

[Anonymous]

6 weeks? Memorial day through all stars is 9 weeks, some weekends both days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:6 weeks? Memorial day through all stars is 9 weeks, some weekends both days.

Practice starts after Mem Day, but meets are still 2 weeks off. It's 8 Saturdays, including time trials, which should zip along quickly, divisionals and All-Stars. There are 2 possible weekends where it's both days: relays and all-stars. If your kids are having a good time, you can't suck it up for a total of 20 hours max?

[Anonymous]

I love summer swim team! Provides awesome structure to our days. Practice is at 10:30 every day, they are with their friends getting great exercise for 45-60 minutes m-f. I pack a lunch and we either spend the day at the club or come home to rest on meet days (Tues and Thurs). I do agree that the amount of parent volunteers is astonishing ~ which I love! It's a family sport, so there is a ton of camaraderie and involvement from all angles, Moms and Dad's are equally involved which is rare in this day and age. The kids cheer for one another and its rare to see a kid sitting around staring at a device instead of watching their teammates. I'm always sad to see it come to an end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also dislike the culture among the parents. It feels a lot like a fraternity and sorority.

+ 1

I didn't realize joining a community pool was going to be like going back to high school, and that my perfectly nice non-team member child would be on the social dud list. This is just so fucking weird and cliched. Can't wait to get away from this $700 summer of watching a bunch of little snots and their nasty parents hang out together.

This is so true. But it's even worse if you're new to the team and you're a social outcast because everyone else has known each other since preschool age and your child is forced to sit through a 4 hour meet with no one talking to her. Those are long 4 hours because you're actually only swimming for like 2 min. Such a waste of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also dislike the culture among the parents. It feels a lot like a fraternity and sorority.

+ 1

I didn't realize joining a community pool was going to be like going back to high school, and that my perfectly nice non-team member child would be on the social dud list. This is just so fucking weird and cliched. Can't wait to get away from this $700 summer of watching a bunch of little snots and their nasty parents hang out together.

This is so true. But it's even worse if you're new to the team and you're a social outcast because everyone else has known each other since preschool age and your child is forced to sit through a 4 hour meet with no one talking to her. Those are long 4 hours because you're actually only swimming for like 2 min. Such a waste of time.

Isnt that just part of being a newcomer? No worse or better with swim team. Of course the parents who have known each other for years talk to each other! Nothing snobby about that. We didn't have many friends the first summer we swam. Now the fourth, we do.

[Anonymous]

I am so deeply thankful that when we joined our pool swim team practice was in the morning so children of 2 working parent families could not participate. It set up our summer schedule to not include swim team. Now, many years later, we go on multiple vacations as a family, we don't have any volunteer obligations at the pool, we have our weekend mornings to ourselves, and we enjoy the pool on our own terms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:6 weeks? Memorial day through all stars is 9 weeks, some weekends both days.

Practice starts after Mem Day, but meets are still 2 weeks off. It's 8 Saturdays, including time trials, which should zip along quickly, divisionals and All-Stars. There are 2 possible weekends where it's both days: relays and all-stars. If your kids are having a good time, you can't suck it up for a total of 20 hours max?

Weallll - it's not quite the same in all of the leagues. In NVSL, we have the Saturdays like you describe through All-Stars. But then there are the Monday evening B meets (our team did 3 this season), Wednesday evening Relay Carnivals (our team has 3 this year), plus the IM Invitational which is also on a Monday evening. So we've had a meet schedule of this since July 4th: Saturday/Monday/Wednesday/Thursday(due to a rescheduled relay carnival)/Saturday/Monday/Wednesday/Saturday/Monday. If you're at a small pool, then many of the parents end up having to volunteer at EVERY event. At our B meet last night, the kids and parents were feeling the burn out. This is where you really need a Team Rep and a Coach and fellow team members/parents who can keep people going! Add on top of that the "drama" of competitive swimming for the kids of ALL ages - in the A meets one week, bumped the next.... Don't get me wrong, I love summer swim and truly think the benefits more than outweigh the downsides. But I can see how some/many parents look at it and think, "Are you kidding me? Is this really what I want for my summer? What in the hell did I get myself into?"