I think you just notice it more on summer swim because it is co-ed and the one sport that kids of all ages are on one team. We have a few large families 4-6 kids on our team and I know a 2 families with 6 kids each on on one team.

Anonymous wrote:It’s a really convenient and cost effective sport when you have a large family. The pool membership and swim team fees are reasonable especially on a per kid basis when you have a bunch of kids. Practices are near home, all the kids compete at the same time/meets, and it’s a very effective way to teach a large group of kids to swim.

Also at our pool no matter how many kids you have or don't have, the volunteer hours requirement is the same.

We don’t have any 4 kid families currently. There are 3 or 4 3 kid ones.

As a PP said, I think swim team attracts families with lots of kids because it's one of the few sports/activities where all the kids can be on the same team.

There was a family with 7 kids where I grew up swimming. I didn't go to their summer pool but knew them from club meets. Everyone knew them because almost all of the kids were amazing swimmers. One was a legit rival to Phelps -- swam fly against him and would talk smack to him in a friendly way at the big meets. That one ended up swimming for an SEC school, and Phelps obviously reached a whole other level after that. One of the other siblings swam for a BIG 10 school but I think they quit halfway through. A couple of the others were at least on track for high level D1. They were younger than me so I don't know what they ended up doing.

I remember the mom used to SCREAM from the bleachers every time one of her kids was swimming... which was often. The dad was really quiet and nice. I think he worked as an official. I can see why it would be easier to just drive them all to the pool at the same time for club practice. And I'm sure once 2 or 3 turned out to be super fast, they figured the others might be too, LOL

We have a lot of these families who go to the local Catholic schools. Swim is the pretty much the only place where we encounter families with 4+ kids, we don't run into this in our public school or neighborhood friends.

We have a lot of catholic families so lots of kids. It's cost mostly and usually a parent stays home so they just do the pool all day in summer.

It’s a really convenient and cost effective sport when you have a large family. The pool membership and swim team fees are reasonable especially on a per kid basis when you have a bunch of kids. Practices are near home, all the kids compete at the same time/meets, and it’s a very effective way to teach a large group of kids to swim.

I have three kids, all of whom swim, and 4+ sounds nuts. We have a few other families on our summer team with three swimmers, but not more than that.

Anonymous wrote:8 children?!?! We have a few 3/4 kid swimmer families on ours (and most of those families the parents were college swimmers). Certainly nowhere close to 8 though!

Same! A bunch of 3/4 kid families with former PAC-12 and BIG-10 swimmers with a handful of former athletes who did other sports. One of them brings her gold medal to the Olympic/USA-themed meet every year and all the kids take turns wearing it around the pool, which is pretty cool.

But back on topic: our division seems to have a lot of families like this and even more so in dive. One family of 5 decided they weren't doing dive anymore and the team had to fold because they were most of the divers and the teenage assistant coach!

You just notice them more in swim team bc it’s a family event. Also swim team is attractive to large families bc everyone can participate. (If family played soccer instead they would he juggling 4-8 different practices and game schedules.

8 children?!?! We have a few 3/4 kid swimmer families on ours (and most of those families the parents were college swimmers). Certainly nowhere close to 8 though!

Anonymous wrote:It’s residency/membership fraud.

Well that's an interesting take, I'll have to think about that, but I think these are legitimate large families.

Anonymous wrote:It’s residency/membership fraud.

This was a joke just to be clear.

It’s residency/membership fraud.

Our summer swim team is filled with kids from crazy large families. I'm talking about 4-8 children. It's really nuts because no where else have I encountered families that large and our team is just dominated by these large families. Is this just my Fairfax county pool or everywhere?