Families that never volunteer - swim team

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Swimming comes across as so elitist. The expensive pay-to-play model is bad enough but then you have forced volunteering or an expensive payout? I can't see how my mom would have been able to handle that. I'm now married to a successful college swimmer and it is funny that she is the one who isn't interested in being involved in the toxic competitive swim culture.

Most summer swim families are middle class. If you think the middle class is elitist, OK.

[Anonymous]

I am really baffled at the idea that requiring volunteering is elitist. Or foreign or whatever. The entire swim team is run by volunteers from picking suits to coordinating pep rallies. Many of whom have full time jobs and do this in their “spare time”.

The tone in this thread of being put out because you have to volunteer for your kid’s activity is vile. Look around the meet. Pretty much every person timing or herding kids in the melting heat is a parent.

My husband coaches multiple sports and last season he was coaching 2 sports. For our 9 yo football team there was no asst coach. And everyone just dropped their kids at practice as if he was a babysitter. He couldn’t even get the majority of parents to bring snacks. Only the parents we knew thanked him at the end of the season. Forget a card or gift. This is not the first time and it won’t be the last. Kids sports don’t run without people like him.

I do the majority of volunteering in another activity. I have specialized experience so I end up working on a specific job the majority of the day, I’m happy to do it but it’s a lot. We have a bunch of new, entitled parents who mysteriously disappear when it’s time to volunteer. It’s like the rest of us work for them.

We all pay the same amount for swim team, soccer etc. If you choose not to pull your weight, your kid should be barred from meets until you do. I’m tired of entitled, selfish people who think we basically work for them. Please just go away, kids sports are not for you.

[Anonymous]

Volunteering is the opposite of elitist. Imagine how much it would cost if you had to pay for people to work the meet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am really baffled at the idea that requiring volunteering is elitist. Or foreign or whatever. The entire swim team is run by volunteers from picking suits to coordinating pep rallies. Many of whom have full time jobs and do this in their “spare time”.

The tone in this thread of being put out because you have to volunteer for your kid’s activity is vile. Look around the meet. Pretty much every person timing or herding kids in the melting heat is a parent.

My husband coaches multiple sports and last season he was coaching 2 sports. For our 9 yo football team there was no asst coach. And everyone just dropped their kids at practice as if he was a babysitter. He couldn’t even get the majority of parents to bring snacks. Only the parents we knew thanked him at the end of the season. Forget a card or gift. This is not the first time and it won’t be the last. Kids sports don’t run without people like him.

I do the majority of volunteering in another activity. I have specialized experience so I end up working on a specific job the majority of the day, I’m happy to do it but it’s a lot. We have a bunch of new, entitled parents who mysteriously disappear when it’s time to volunteer. It’s like the rest of us work for them.

We all pay the same amount for swim team, soccer etc. If you choose not to pull your weight, your kid should be barred from meets until you do. I’m tired of entitled, selfish people who think we basically work for them. Please just go away, kids sports are not for you.

Preach. +1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swimming comes across as so elitist. The expensive pay-to-play model is bad enough but then you have forced volunteering or an expensive payout? I can't see how my mom would have been able to handle that. I'm now married to a successful college swimmer and it is funny that she is the one who isn't interested in being involved in the toxic competitive swim culture.

Most summer swim families are middle class. If you think the middle class is elitist, OK.

Middle class do not belong to private pools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swimming comes across as so elitist. The expensive pay-to-play model is bad enough but then you have forced volunteering or an expensive payout? I can't see how my mom would have been able to handle that. I'm now married to a successful college swimmer and it is funny that she is the one who isn't interested in being involved in the toxic competitive swim culture.

Expensive? Ours is so cheap. Like $250 for a full summer. You do have to belong to my HOA though, so maybe if you don’t have a pool membership you’re paying more.

The now subidizes it. Ours is three times that plus team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swimming comes across as so elitist. The expensive pay-to-play model is bad enough but then you have forced volunteering or an expensive payout? I can't see how my mom would have been able to handle that. I'm now married to a successful college swimmer and it is funny that she is the one who isn't interested in being involved in the toxic competitive swim culture.

Most summer swim families are middle class. If you think the middle class is elitist, OK.

Middle class do not belong to private pools.

It’s 2023 not 1960. It’s not elitist to join a community pool. It’s more elitist to have your own pool.

[Anonymous]

I waited until my youngest was old enough to join. It meant holding my eldest back from joining by a couple years but that’s the deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swimming comes across as so elitist. The expensive pay-to-play model is bad enough but then you have forced volunteering or an expensive payout? I can't see how my mom would have been able to handle that. I'm now married to a successful college swimmer and it is funny that she is the one who isn't interested in being involved in the toxic competitive swim culture.

Most summer swim families are middle class. If you think the middle class is elitist, OK.

Middle class do not belong to private pools.

They sure as heck do! Elite is having your own pool.
Our swim team costs $145 for the summer. Some of you can find anything to complain about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swimming comes across as so elitist. The expensive pay-to-play model is bad enough but then you have forced volunteering or an expensive payout? I can't see how my mom would have been able to handle that. I'm now married to a successful college swimmer and it is funny that she is the one who isn't interested in being involved in the toxic competitive swim culture.

Most summer swim families are middle class. If you think the middle class is elitist, OK.

Middle class do not belong to private pools.

It's really not that expensive. We joined for less than $700.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swimming comes across as so elitist. The expensive pay-to-play model is bad enough but then you have forced volunteering or an expensive payout? I can't see how my mom would have been able to handle that. I'm now married to a successful college swimmer and it is funny that she is the one who isn't interested in being involved in the toxic competitive swim culture.

Most summer swim families are middle class. If you think the middle class is elitist, OK.

Middle class do not belong to private pools.

It’s 2023 not 1960. It’s not elitist to join a community pool. It’s more elitist to have your own pool.

Yes, but real middle class cannot afford $700-1K or living in an HOA community. Be real. They go swim at the county pools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swimming comes across as so elitist. The expensive pay-to-play model is bad enough but then you have forced volunteering or an expensive payout? I can't see how my mom would have been able to handle that. I'm now married to a successful college swimmer and it is funny that she is the one who isn't interested in being involved in the toxic competitive swim culture.

Most summer swim families are middle class. If you think the middle class is elitist, OK.

Middle class do not belong to private pools.

It's really not that expensive. We joined for less than $700.

Not for you but if you are real middle class its expensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I volunteer to be a timer when I can get a babysitter (probably every third meet) but when I don’t I have a 4 year old that cannot be unsupervised near a pool. When my other kid is older, I will volunteer more. I assume that many of the U8 families also have other little kids. Their time will come when their kids are older.

This is not an excuse. You need to find something your family can do for the team other than being an on deck official during the meet.

It's really fine to sit out from volunteering at the meets, but you should do some of the backend work like shopping or organizing the closet or counting ribbons. That's what most of the parents with littles ones do.

What do you do if these jobs never appear on the SignUpGenius, only the ones requiring full attention at the meet? If the people in charge really need those with under 5s to volunteer, it would be helpful if they can leave open and point toward roles that will work for those families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swimming comes across as so elitist. The expensive pay-to-play model is bad enough but then you have forced volunteering or an expensive payout? I can't see how my mom would have been able to handle that. I'm now married to a successful college swimmer and it is funny that she is the one who isn't interested in being involved in the toxic competitive swim culture.

Most summer swim families are middle class. If you think the middle class is elitist, OK.

Middle class do not belong to private pools.

It’s 2023 not 1960. It’s not elitist to join a community pool. It’s more elitist to have your own pool.

Yes, but real middle class cannot afford $700-1K or living in an HOA community. Be real. They go swim at the county pools.

Are you from the DMV area?

Median household income is around $130,000 for Fairfax county which has most of the pools in the NVSL. They can afford $600-700 membership fee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swimming comes across as so elitist. The expensive pay-to-play model is bad enough but then you have forced volunteering or an expensive payout? I can't see how my mom would have been able to handle that. I'm now married to a successful college swimmer and it is funny that she is the one who isn't interested in being involved in the toxic competitive swim culture.

Most summer swim families are middle class. If you think the middle class is elitist, OK.

Middle class do not belong to private pools.

It’s 2023 not 1960. It’s not elitist to join a community pool. It’s more elitist to have your own pool.

Yes, but real middle class cannot afford $700-1K or living in an HOA community. Be real. They go swim at the county pools.

Are you from the DMV area?

Median household income is around $130,000 for Fairfax county which has most of the pools in the NVSL. They can afford $600-700 membership fee.

Yes and $130k is not exactly middle class.