Does your kid sign up for art classes with the expectation that they will be the next Picasso? Do they do boy/girl scouts because it will set them up to be an eagle scout so they can go to West Point and join the Special Forces? Does your kid do a talent show because it will get them a recording contract? Is your kid taking gymnastics at 5 so they can make the olympics?

Geez, relax, sir. Linking every activity that kids to do to the possibility of becoming a professional in that field is pretty silly. Every kid is going to become a professional in something, someday, so relax.

That's an interesting way of framing this cost, as much as it makes me blanch.

Meanwhile, this "baby soccer" studs-up slide tackle is still instructive on the various national extremes:

https://twitter.com/TomSandersonSP/status/1055119439283265536

We spend three times the cost of travel sports on private tutoring for schools. Money well spent, both tutors and travel sports. That is to say nothing about other education spending, including donations to college and grad school alma mater.

Wish it wasn’t this way, but it’s the price of doing business in this day and age.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wayne Rooney has his son playing for a local club with DA. But what does he know about player development?

So does Donald Trump...your point?

OP, I think you've touched a nerve with parents who are realizing they've wasted alot of money.

It is about $3000 a year, why some people think that is a lot of money? - I mean, for people living in this area and financial aid option available.

Pretty much all activities (piano, tennis, tutor etc) cost about the same or even more.

Seriously, this.

I spend a ton of money on my kid’s sport. Kid will never ever be a serious athlete. Why do I do it?

To keep her fit and out of trouble. It’s as simple as that. Solid workouts, no idle hands.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wayne Rooney has his son playing for a local club with DA. But what does he know about player development?

So does Donald Trump...your point?

OP, I think you've touched a nerve with parents who are realizing they've wasted alot of money.

It is about $3000 a year, why some people think that is a lot of money? - I mean, for people living in this area and financial aid option available.

Pretty much all activities (piano, tennis, tutor etc) cost about the same or even more.

this is not a place for serious soccer discussion. It's a place for dumping on anything american related to soccer. or anything american, for that matter. i suspect most are self loathing americans, not foreign nationals. if you haven't figured that out by now, you aren't paying attention.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wayne Rooney has his son playing for a local club with DA. But what does he know about player development?

So does Donald Trump...your point?

OP, I think you've touched a nerve with parents who are realizing they've wasted alot of money.

Anonymous wrote:Wayne Rooney has his son playing for a local club with DA. But what does he know about player development?

So does Donald Trump...your point?

What is DA?

cool story bro.

Wayne Rooney has his son playing for a local club with DA. But what does he know about player development?

HOLY CRAP?!?!!! Are you f*Cking kidding me???? OMG! I did not know this.

Give me break, OP. No sh*t. You didn't just invent solve quantum physics.

Signed,
A jaded 48-year old, 3rd generation travel/college player/pro player family that hates how it's gotten EVEN WORSE over the years.

And, p.s., my own kids are not in travel. They do get training from actual pro-coaches--and I would never put them in one of the DA local DA programs or 6-team per age group Clubs--nor did I care about 'team results' in the U9-U13 ages. I would never drive up and down the Eastern seaboard (though I was taken as a child)--nor fly for regular season games.

Methinks a lot of sock puppeting into going on here, as sympathetic as I am to the OP’s overly long rant

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am from an African country where kids actually know how to play soccer and they do everywhere, without shoes, with a ball made of socks etc. I am sorry to say, but this game your kids play here is not soccer. The injuries are unbelievable. It is not your fault, you are trying hard. But those coaches suck.

We moved here last Summer from overseas and I have to concur. This game being played here even at the DA level is atrocious. Really disappointed to the point of considering an overseas boarding school for our kid so they can truly develop to the best of their ability.

Hahahahahaha. Speaking of throwing money away chasing an impossible dream. You should save your money and buy lottery tickets every day instead.

Half of the kids in my son's class are on a travel soccer team. What are the odds they're ALL really good?

The parents LOVE to casually mention how their kids are soooo driven, they just can't stop them! THEY'VE done absolutely nothing to encourage this, and in fact they act like it's such a burden to have super driven and athletic kids!

eyeroll. OP it's mostly parent A

good post.