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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's strange to me that this is the activity that gets so much flack on DCUM for being "privileged" or "elitist".

For my 2 kids summer swimming costs $440 a season per child.  That's $5 a kid more than if they joined the team at the public pool.  It works out to about $10 a day.  It's a whole lot less expensive than a summer of camp, or travel soccer, or a family vacation or any one of a number of things that DCUM seems to think are normal.  We can walk to the pool from our neighborhood of $500K houses, and rental apartment communities, which worked well when I was a SAHM without a car, and works well now that they're teenagers and can get there when I am at work.

There are two different options for practice times, and no one bats an eye if you miss one or a bunch of practices, which worked well for us as a family who needed flexibility due to a first responder parent.

I'm not saying it's perfect or that every family can do it, but it's far from the most elitist activity for kids.  [/quote]

$440 is a lot of money for some people.

Time itself is a commodity.  And wellness.  Some of us have little to none.  We might be busy in litigation, surgery, caring for a paralyzed family member, long covid, maybe a major house leak destroyed most of our home and several contractors are here, working nights and weekends, etc. [/quote]

OMG! No one owes you convenient childcare free of financial cost or a contribution of volunteer hours. No one owes you a pool membership when most of us applied and waited years. No one owes you free anything except a safe and appropriate public education k -12.

Activities that are relatively lower in cost like summer swim, rec sports, and scouting all operate on a massive amount of volunteer labor. Also due to our screwed up healthcare system and litigious society, all kid’s activities require a massive amount of insurance in addition to modest salaries for the few paid employees.

Some groups are more “extra” and some are more bare bones. No one is forcing you to join the pool that does a team social AND team breakfast every week. If the pool associated with your HOA or the only one you got a membership offer for after 5 years of waiting happens to be the “extra” pool, then don’t join swim team if you can’t be bothered. If you have legitimate family hardship, raise that privately to the team rep, don’t make it a hypothetical sob story when 95% of families can find a way to contribute most years. 
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