We have several families of 5-6 kids on our team. All have commented on the ease of having one sport that all kids can go to at the same time, same place, and all can join even if it isn't their main sport (no tryouts/cuts, it's just a matter of who swims in which meet/event). Our team also has a family cap on fees, so after I think 3 kids the additional kids are effectively free.

I have 5 and echo what was said before. It's the only activity where all 5 of my kids are in the same.place at the same time. It is a fraction of the cost of summer camp for all of them. All of their friends are there anyway and it is just easy. Bonus for us is that they all love it.

Mom of four and swim season was my favorite season (until I became team rep). Before that, I loved that all my kids went to the same place and I didn't have to drive them except to meets ... for which they were all going to the same place.

As a rep, it's not that I don't still love that. It's that I'm trickin exhausted.

Anonymous wrote: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 not just cost. It's also ease. I come from the kind of Protestantism where people often have large families, and most of those families swim. Compared to having your 6-8 kids in 3-4 different sports, having everyone swim is so easy, right? Just sit at the pool all morning Monday through Saturday. Plus if you're a Christian it leaves Sunday open for church, which to these kinds of people matters a lot. And you can often do some form of winter swim without meets if you really don't want to skip church ever.

We have a big family. The kids aren't all siblings, there are 3 groups of close cousins, but people might not know that.

If you have one kid, then summer camp with swimming built in is probably the cheapest way to get your kid swimming every day, happy, and safely supervised while you work.

If you have 6 kids, then swim team with a babysitter, or parents rotating days off, or a grandparent, is way cheaper than 6 kids worth of camp tuition.

Anonymous wrote: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.

This! We have a couple of big families who do this for this exact reason. Both happen to also have a stay at home parent and the 2 hours consumed by swim and tennis are their only break in the day - I completely see why it is appealing to them!

Summer swim team would be ideal for a big family because all the kids can do it at the same time in one place. Brilliant.

Our team of 200 has a significant number of 4+ families but as PP said it’s more noticeable bc it’s a family activity. I saw a mom with a baby on her hip at a meet the other day and her oldest is in my kids 11-12 division. There are at least 3 in between. Good for her, I’d lose my mind if I had a 12 yo and a baby.