Anonymous wrote:So you want your spouse to change jobs so your son can play sports? That's pretty extreme. There are, however, patents who send their kids into different living situations away from the family so they can pursue sports - Gaby Douglas is an example.

Yes, I generally think that children should not be determining the future of the whole family like this unless it's a drastic situation like an illness.

14:51 raises very good points. I'd also factor genetic potential (e.g. the kid of a 5'8 DH and 5'0 DW isn't likely to do much in basketball).

A clearer idea of the sport (many sports are populated by hucksters) and what you want your spouse to do exactly would be nice.

OP, you said child is 12.

Was your child just invited to train at the Karoli Ranch? If so, I might entertain the idea of the child relocating to TX, with perhaps one parent, if you can afford to maintain two households and a few commutes for the other parent to visit.

If your child is not an elite level Olympic contender in the training window for the next Olympics, then I would not even consider the idea. The only 3 sports I can think of where a 12 year old would be in that window are womens gymnastics, womens figure skating, and swimming.

Swimming can be taken care of in the greater DC area, so that leaves gymnastics and skating as sports where a 12 year old might need to relocate to realize a realistic Olympic dream. Those are the only two sports in very, very limited scenarios where your idea would make sense. From your husband's reaction, I am guessing your child is in neither of those sports.

Any other move is just a silly, bad idea.

Having a DC who is good athlete at 10, I can tell you that you can find good support in and around DC area for any sport. Get your kid involved and see how they compete/ compare to others. My DC heard the same re tennis, for example, is now in a local top program for grooming D1 players, and isn't nearly the best. Could be I suppose with a lot of work but not worth losing employment over it. Ditto with DC's other team sport. Team is competitive regionally and likely "nationally" .. But what that really means is in a certain division, not nearly the top division in the country. Chances of someone actually paying money to see any given kid play a sport some day are very slim. Meanwhile we do a lot of driving and sitting and spending to accommodate DC for the experience of it, but thinking this could be a viable occupation for DC's lifetime seems silly.

Anonymous wrote:So you want your spouse to change jobs so your son can play sports? That's pretty extreme. There are, however, patents who send their kids into different living situations away from the family so they can pursue sports - Gaby Douglas is an example.

It's not extreme, it's ridiculous. OP, I'm with your spouse on this one.

What is your child's genetic potential? Are you and your husband over 6 feet tall? If not basketball is not going to go to a top basketball school. Is your kid already on club teams? Many 12 year olds started playing travel baseball at 8. Has your kid already played tennis for years? Most kids are specializing by 12 so if your kid hasn't he is behind.

Someone telling you your kid shows a lot of potential means they want money out of you. Nothing out of the ordinary. Lots of parents are told that. Sport scholarships are not the way to free college, very very few ever get them and a lot of them also have some other hook