Are you good friends with your travel team families?

My cousin, aka - "Jr" (much younger than me) was big into sports, and did all sorts of travel teams growing up, and went on to play at a public ivy. His mom was a teacher and his dad was golden parachuted/consulted and stayed home (second marriage for him). So education was important.

When Dad died and Jr was still in college his WHOLE travel baseball team from when he was 12 year old showed up at the funeral and wake. Parents and "kids" (they were in their early 20s at this point). I'm not a sports person, but seeing the "team family" show up made me get why some people are into sports.

Yes there were some kids from his high school and college teams, but the WHOLE team from his youth travel team was there. Isn't being able to support people the reason why we are here on earth?

If my husband were to pass, I don't think the middle school AAP cohort would show up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well she has good values and you don't. She's trying to clue you in to what's really important. If you don't want to hear that you should seek out another friend.

Hey look, OP! Your friend found DCUM!

I was hoping that person was joking!

Anonymous wrote:Well she has good values and you don't. She's trying to clue you in to what's really important. If you don't want to hear that you should seek out another friend.

Hey look, OP! Your friend found DCUM!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The good person, happy person, productive person is what I care about most. Part of achieving that means I highly values school. But why can't a kid have a passion for a hobby? In this case sports?

I can see if his grades went from Bs to Ds, you might have to figure out a different mix of school and sports, but if that's not happening, a person's joy matters, too. If your son loves something, and you can encourage this passion, it sounds like a wonderful thing.

I agree with you about supporting hobbies kids are passionate about & certainly about a person's joy mattering.

I really don't understand the bolded phrase, however. I know plenty of good people who are happy & productive adults who hated school & got poor grades. I also know several immoral --oftentimes miserable -- jerks & a few non productive burnouts who were top students.

Happy people can also be decent students. But I value school because of the rapidly growing chasm between low income and comfortable. It will take a LOT for our kids' generation to be OK financially. And I'm not talking upper middle class or wealthy. Just OK. And to me that requires success in school so that the child can go on to get additional education or skilled training.

Nobody said happy people can't be decent (or even excellent) students, just that not all happy people are (or were) good student. Not all financially secure people were good students, either, ( & vise versa) & I'm guessing this will continue to be the case, even in the new economy.

Curious, is the other person Asian? I am Asian and this lady totally sounds like something my mom would say. She would probably criticize your eating habits and your clothes too. The thinking is that the most accessible way for immigrants to climb up the social economic ladder is to focus on education. Asians tend not to be as tall or as built as our American counterparts and even if you work out and practice everyday, there is very little chance that we will be at the top level in any sport. So why waste the money & time. With school, it's simple--study hard, practice and you'll get good grades. Good grades lead to college and then, hopefully, a good job. I wouldn't take too much into this lady. It's probably just the way she was raised. If sports works for your family then so be it. Just smile and say, "Yah, you're better off sticking with academics since little Johnny obviously isn't coordinated for sports."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The good person, happy person, productive person is what I care about most. Part of achieving that means I highly values school. But why can't a kid have a passion for a hobby? In this case sports?

I can see if his grades went from Bs to Ds, you might have to figure out a different mix of school and sports, but if that's not happening, a person's joy matters, too. If your son loves something, and you can encourage this passion, it sounds like a wonderful thing.

I agree with you about supporting hobbies kids are passionate about & certainly about a person's joy mattering.

I really don't understand the bolded phrase, however. I know plenty of good people who are happy & productive adults who hated school & got poor grades. I also know several immoral --oftentimes miserable -- jerks & a few non productive burnouts who were top students.

Happy people can also be decent students. But I value school because of the rapidly growing chasm between low income and comfortable. It will take a LOT for our kids' generation to be OK financially. And I'm not talking upper middle class or wealthy. Just OK. And to me that requires success in school so that the child can go on to get additional education or skilled training.

My child is smart and goes to a very good private school. He has the advantages of being raised in an upper middle class to affluent home with all of the cultural implications attached (speaks well, has good manners, etc). It's not fair, to be clear, but I really don't worry if he is in the top or bottom half of that arguably 1% experience. I do worry about things like grit and character which I work hard on instilling. Many of the very people obsessed with how their child is doing in school are similarly situated.

Anonymous wrote:I'm Asian American and honestly I don't get the extreme emphasis that many white American parents put on their kids to do well in sports, sometimes to the detriment of academics. Also I think it's ironic that the kid is in tip top shape and the parents are often overweight and out of shape?! Anyways, to each his own!

WTF?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The good person, happy person, productive person is what I care about most. Part of achieving that means I highly values school. But why can't a kid have a passion for a hobby? In this case sports?

I can see if his grades went from Bs to Ds, you might have to figure out a different mix of school and sports, but if that's not happening, a person's joy matters, too. If your son loves something, and you can encourage this passion, it sounds like a wonderful thing.

I agree with you about supporting hobbies kids are passionate about & certainly about a person's joy mattering.

I really don't understand the bolded phrase, however. I know plenty of good people who are happy & productive adults who hated school & got poor grades. I also know several immoral --oftentimes miserable -- jerks & a few non productive burnouts who were top students.

Happy people can also be decent students. But I value school because of the rapidly growing chasm between low income and comfortable. It will take a LOT for our kids' generation to be OK financially. And I'm not talking upper middle class or wealthy. Just OK. And to me that requires success in school so that the child can go on to get additional education or skilled training.

Just come up with your own rude comment "school comes first? Oh, I thought it was eating based on the size of your ass" or similar.

Sometimes hell is other Moms...she's not your friend. Just slide away from her when she comments like that.

I would much rather that my kids choose a sport as an extracurricular once they are in high school (compared to a non-sport) for these reasons:

A sport is good for getting into college, it sets up an automatic group of friends, it relieves stress, and it gets you in shape.

Anonymous wrote:The good person, happy person, productive person is what I care about most. Part of achieving that means I highly values school. But why can't a kid have a passion for a hobby? In this case sports?

I can see if his grades went from Bs to Ds, you might have to figure out a different mix of school and sports, but if that's not happening, a person's joy matters, too. If your son loves something, and you can encourage this passion, it sounds like a wonderful thing.

I agree with you about supporting hobbies kids are passionate about & certainly about a person's joy mattering.

I really don't understand the bolded phrase, however. I know plenty of good people who are happy & productive adults who hated school & got poor grades. I also know several immoral --oftentimes miserable -- jerks & a few non productive burnouts who were top students.

Family comes first in my family.

I'm Asian American and honestly I don't get the extreme emphasis that many white American parents put on their kids to do well in sports, sometimes to the detriment of academics. Also I think it's ironic that the kid is in tip top shape and the parents are often overweight and out of shape?! Anyways, to each his own!

Anonymous wrote:Pretty much every kid I knew who had a parent like this rebelled at some point because their parents were so overly controlling.

I agree. I think it's sad. We are probably more successful than most of our friends but a lot less controlling. We had to find it in ourselves and to be street smart to a degree, which I think is pretty important, as well as the whole emotional IQ thing. Too many kids around here are burning out and are a mess down the road!