Reply to Sister says 14yo nephew not coming to my wedding because of his sports tournament. Thoughts?

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Reply to "Sister says 14yo nephew not coming to my wedding because of his sports tournament. Thoughts?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm waiting for the parents of preschoolers/babies to infiltrate this thread with their outrage. 
Your sister is right.  Your nephew can't miss this tournament.  [/quote]

+1 and if my kids were preschoolers/babies/3rd graders, I would totally be on the flip side of this.  But now that I've got kids on team sports *and they are older* I do see the problem here as legitimate.

The key here is we are talking about a team sport.

When kids are little, missing a practice or game really no big deal.  But by the time they are 14, on a team sport, each kid has a position and there's various plays and they've all got their part in it.  The team depends on each kid--in clubs or travel teams, they are not fungible at 14 y.o.

So the kid might be penalized in the future for not showing up--because the coach recognizes that no matter how great his talent, the family cannot be depended on, therefore the kid can't be depended on to show up.  And it goes against all the band-of-brothers training and bonding.

And look, it's not like when tournament day was selected, the kid opted out and they worked around him--no, it was the bad luck of your sister to give you the green light about the bad date.  So by now the kid is probably a crucial part of the whole team working well.

I have to hand it to you--you are handling it well and assuming you are childless, you are handling it extraordinarily well.

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I don't buy into this rationale.  This rationale applies to the husband or wife who perpetually cannot miss a work thing - come on, they made a commitment and are an integral player and it could impact their career - to attend a kid's recital.  It's about priorities.

I'm 36 years old.  If I went to my h.s. tennis match instead of my aunt's wedding, looking back with my adult perspective I'd feel like a real jerk and that was a mistake.  Because although I'm a tremendous advocate of competitive sports and teams, what was that one tennis match compared to the family wedding?  I barely can remember any of the particular matches and, in my current life, despite being a damn good h.s. tennis player, it's not like playing a h.s. sport has much importance in the overall scheme of life, whereas family surely does.  I think this is called getting caught up in the here and now and losing the big picture!!

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