Our team has a requirement, that they aren't very consistent about enforcing. Gut people are really good at stepping up for people who really can't make the requirement. The year we had a kid on chemo, my hours were the first ones finished at the pool, because people volunteered and signed my name, so it showed up that I volunteered for 8 jobs at time trials. A couple summers ago, I covered almost every shift for a mom who had a baby in early July. One of my closest swim mom friends, I met because I saw her struggling trying to manage a volunteer job and a sibling with special needs, and I asked her how I could help. This weekend, we had a meet where I worked the whole time S & T, and my teenagers did set up and clean up. Since I'm done with hours for the season, I asked around to see if anyone needed the hours.

But there are also plenty of 2 parent families with healthy kids who aren't newborns who don't even try to contribute in any way. They use the fact that they have a four year old and and 2 jobs as an excuse for everything.

There are plenty of summer activities that don't require your help. Choose those. This particular activity isn't for you.

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Anonymous wrote:Swimming comes across as so elitist. The expensive pay-to-play model is bad enough but then you have forced volunteering or an expensive payout? I can't see how my mom would have been able to handle that. I'm now married to a successful college swimmer and it is funny that she is the one who isn't interested in being involved in the toxic competitive swim culture.

Most summer swim families are middle class. If you think the middle class is elitist, OK.

Middle class do not belong to private pools.

It’s 2023 not 1960. It’s not elitist to join a community pool. It’s more elitist to have your own pool.

Yes, but real middle class cannot afford $700-1K or living in an HOA community. Be real. They go swim at the county pools.

Are you from the DMV area?

Median household income is around $130,000 for Fairfax county which has most of the pools in the NVSL. They can afford $600-700 membership fee.

Yes and $130k is not exactly middle class.

So most people are not middle classes here?

The bottom line is we live in Fairfax County and join a community pool that is the closest pool to our house. There’s no waitlist. I guess one can consider the entire county elitist if they want but as it stands this is where I live and I’m not planning to move.

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Anonymous wrote:Swimming comes across as so elitist. The expensive pay-to-play model is bad enough but then you have forced volunteering or an expensive payout? I can't see how my mom would have been able to handle that. I'm now married to a successful college swimmer and it is funny that she is the one who isn't interested in being involved in the toxic competitive swim culture.

Most summer swim families are middle class. If you think the middle class is elitist, OK.

Middle class do not belong to private pools.

It’s 2023 not 1960. It’s not elitist to join a community pool. It’s more elitist to have your own pool.

Yes, but real middle class cannot afford $700-1K or living in an HOA community. Be real. They go swim at the county pools.

Are you from the DMV area?

Median household income is around $130,000 for Fairfax county which has most of the pools in the NVSL. They can afford $600-700 membership fee.

Yes and $130k is not exactly middle class.

So most people are not middle classes here?

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Anonymous wrote:Swimming comes across as so elitist. The expensive pay-to-play model is bad enough but then you have forced volunteering or an expensive payout? I can't see how my mom would have been able to handle that. I'm now married to a successful college swimmer and it is funny that she is the one who isn't interested in being involved in the toxic competitive swim culture.

Our summer swim is $125. So elite.

Plus the pool membership itself, the suits, the gear, etc.

They may be at a public pool. You can get cheap suits. Our team does not care what kind.

NP - summer swim isn’t “toxic competitive swim culture” - not by a long shot. Anyone who thinks that doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Some of the clubs, sure, but summer swim? Come on.

Parents who NEVER volunteer suck and are beyond entitled and selfish…end of story

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Swimming comes across as so elitist. The expensive pay-to-play model is bad enough but then you have forced volunteering or an expensive payout? I can't see how my mom would have been able to handle that. I'm now married to a successful college swimmer and it is funny that she is the one who isn't interested in being involved in the toxic competitive swim culture.

Our summer swim is $125. So elite.

Plus the pool membership itself, the suits, the gear, etc.

my kid wears a $15 speedo from Costco and a team swim hat that was $10. The pool for the summer was less than 2 weeks of camp.

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Anonymous wrote:Swimming comes across as so elitist. The expensive pay-to-play model is bad enough but then you have forced volunteering or an expensive payout? I can't see how my mom would have been able to handle that. I'm now married to a successful college swimmer and it is funny that she is the one who isn't interested in being involved in the toxic competitive swim culture.

Our summer swim is $125. So elite.

Plus the pool membership itself, the suits, the gear, etc.

Our pool is around $600 a summer plus $125 for swim team. That’s $725 for a place your child gets approx 5 days a week of lessons for 8 weeks + meets, social activities, a place the family can go, a place your child can go with friends, a place that keeps your child active, tennis court access, oh, and a free tee shirt, etc. ours also allows any suits.

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Anonymous wrote:Swimming comes across as so elitist. The expensive pay-to-play model is bad enough but then you have forced volunteering or an expensive payout? I can't see how my mom would have been able to handle that. I'm now married to a successful college swimmer and it is funny that she is the one who isn't interested in being involved in the toxic competitive swim culture.

Our summer swim is $125. So elite.

Plus the pool membership itself, the suits, the gear, etc.

They may be at a public pool. You can get cheap suits. Our team does not care what kind.

Literally every sport costs money if you're going to do it around here. Even basketball and soccer, which is just one ball for the whole team. Life isn't fair. I grew up doing zero sports because my family couldn't afford it. I didn't cry and grouse, and neither did my parents. Now my family and I belong to the community pool, which is just a pool--no tennis court, etc. and yes we pay the feel to belong each summer, which feels like a lot. But the way things cost these days, it breaks down to a bargain. You cant go to the theater for 4 people without spending $100. Zava zone, sandy spring, even bowling adds up. So $500 for the summer and $150 for my kid to swim 5 mornings a week for 7 weeks and the amount of times we go to the pool as a smaller for fun? Cheapest thing we could do all summer besides hiking, which we do, but it's hot and buggy.

I'm sick of the "it's not fair" people. Life's not fair! Let's move on.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Swimming comes across as so elitist. The expensive pay-to-play model is bad enough but then you have forced volunteering or an expensive payout? I can't see how my mom would have been able to handle that. I'm now married to a successful college swimmer and it is funny that she is the one who isn't interested in being involved in the toxic competitive swim culture.

Our summer swim is $125. So elite.

Plus the pool membership itself, the suits, the gear, etc.

They may be at a public pool. You can get cheap suits. Our team does not care what kind.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swimming comes across as so elitist. The expensive pay-to-play model is bad enough but then you have forced volunteering or an expensive payout? I can't see how my mom would have been able to handle that. I'm now married to a successful college swimmer and it is funny that she is the one who isn't interested in being involved in the toxic competitive swim culture.

Our summer swim is $125. So elite.

Plus the pool membership itself, the suits, the gear, etc.

What I’ve realized at our pool is that nothing fixes this because there’s an incentive mismatch. The non-volunteers know that fee or not, if they don’t show up, the parents of 50-200 other swimmers will step up rather than cancel a meet.

Has anyone ever forfeited or cancelled a meet at the last minute due to no-show volunteers? Ever? In the entire history of summer swim? I’m a parent rep and we were recently wondering this after the usual pre-meet scramble to cover for parents who signed up but “forgot and are out of town” but never actually planned to show up.

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Anonymous wrote:I volunteer to be a timer when I can get a babysitter (probably every third meet) but when I don’t I have a 4 year old that cannot be unsupervised near a pool. When my other kid is older, I will volunteer more. I assume that many of the U8 families also have other little kids. Their time will come when their kids are older.

Nope. This is my first year without an 8U swimmer and 6th year with swim team. We have always volunteered and then some. Don’t participate in the activity of you cannot commit to the volunteer requirements. Your child care issues are not everyone else’s problem.

That's not really fair and the teams should have babysitters as volunteers. Our pool the parents all look after each other's kids but even if you are volunteering and have a younger swimmer its an issue as someone has to watch that child at the pool while they are waiting to swim. We left a team where some parents were nasty to the families who did volunteer complaining that our kids were not being properly supervised at meets (we'd put them all in one spot together and parents would rotate but its hard to volunteer and supervise your kid at the meets). Thankfully the new pool is different and everyone looks after each other's kids so its a non-issue. You are pretty nasty to complain about people not volunteering when they have legit issues like child care. It IS everyone's problem and being part of a team is helping each other out. If one person is volunteering and you are not, step up and watch their kid.

It IS “fair” (and P.S. who told you life was fair?) Don’t make commitments you can’t keep. Swim team isn’t a right.

Anonymous wrote:I volunteer to be a timer when I can get a babysitter (probably every third meet) but when I don’t I have a 4 year old that cannot be unsupervised near a pool. When my other kid is older, I will volunteer more. I assume that many of the U8 families also have other little kids. Their time will come when their kids are older.

So join a team that doesn’t have volunteer requirements, or don’t join a team.

Anonymous wrote:Mind your own business OP

Stop being lazy and do what you agreed to do or pull your kids out. Simple.

Anonymous wrote:Swimming comes across as so elitist. The expensive pay-to-play model is bad enough but then you have forced volunteering or an expensive payout? I can't see how my mom would have been able to handle that. I'm now married to a successful college swimmer and it is funny that she is the one who isn't interested in being involved in the toxic competitive swim culture.

Our summer swim is $125. So elite.