<p>Ha!Ha!Ha! Welcome to the world of rowing where parents have no life or bank account! As a crew parent, I would do whatever it takes for my child to row. But, you see, I have been sucked into the sport and I can’t seem to escape!</p>
<p>I think other parents on this board will be able to give you a more objective answer. Good luck to you and your daughter!</p>
<p>fendrock, it sounds as this will be at least an order of magnitude more demanding than even all that driving back and forth to dance class. Good luck to you and your d in a brave new world …</p>
<p>I used to crab a lot about driving 40-60 minutes a day round-trip to a local dance studio. But I know parents who drove much farther - sometimes more than an hour one-way, through the Tug Hill snow belt in central NY (which locals know means cheating death several times a year). In my experience, when a child shows a genuine love and aptitude for an EC, the parents are reluctant to curtail it. I’ll be curious to read what parents think is too much.</p>
<p>Fortunately she is already a junior in high school so we only have to get through a year of this.</p>
<p>The d is question has been extremely dedicated to the conditioning necessary to prepare for racing. She is up 5:30am many mornings to work out on her own, lifting weights, running, doing yoga etc - she probably works out for 1 1/2 hours every day - also participated in winter track.</p>
<p>I find it very stressful to try and figure all this out on my own, making our way to the regatta, figuring out what time we need to get there, trying to find someone to ensure we will have a boat, etc - and carrying the boat is sort of putting it over the top, although I suppose it is a matter of just doing it and getting used to it.</p>
<p>You know this is between your husband and you. We have said “no” to one of our boys who was interested in a non-school sanctioned sport that required travel, required Saturday mornings hauling him here and there, etc. etc. We just said no. If your husband says “no” then is he really going to haul, cart, etc. if you say “yes” or are you the one that is going to have to strap the scull to the top of the car cart and haul and everything else involved? In our case it was the weekend business that defined when we said yes and when we said no. </p>
<p>We basically told the kids they could not be involved in anything that required commitment every Saturday of a sport season. My H and I feel strongly that spending Saturdays and Sunday with the kids is more important than a non-school activity with a Saturday commitment. I’ll drive to the ends of the earth for the kids and an EC as long as I don’t have to take time off from work and it doesn’t involve weekends. An occasional weekend here and there is fine, but some of these things these days are just unreasonable. A good friend of ours mused this year that his biggest regret was allowing his kids to get involved in something that involved an every Saturday commitment during the summer. He said they never had family time and it divided the family because not everyone was willing to sit in the bleachers every Saturday morning watching one kid “do his thing” not to mention driving hours here and there. </p>
<p>Every family feels different, we know people whose entire life centers around one kid and a particular passion and they are entirely happy being “sport parents” and family togetherness means the entire family watching one kid do his thing. Each family has to decide what their priorities are. In your case it’s a year or two but really it’s a decision you and your husband need to be ‘together’ in my opinion. My H and I decided when the kids were young that we would always be “together” on any decisions involving the kids. We’ll hassle it out in private but when the decision comes down we’re “together” in a united front and the commitment on our part that it will consume both with regard to time and money.</p>
<p>One summer I spent driving my son back and forth for his hospital internship- rush hour traffic both coming and going- 25 miles 2 times a day… From outlying suburb to heart of the city- but it was so worth it ! Luckily I teach, so I had the summer off, but it was not much of a summer for me 4 hours a day spent driving.</p>
<p>My son still thanks me for doing that for him. We had a lot of quality car time discussions.
Sometimes the sacrifices are so worth it in the long run.</p>
<p>Other son is a football player. Practices are year round, with especially painful Saturday morning sessions beginning at 6 am. I pray he passes his driving test next month…</p>
<p>Does having the daughter do the driving and take over the car for that time frame leave fendrock without a car, though? It’s not who does the driving - it’s where the car is (and does it leave someone stranded).</p>
<p>i have encouraged any ec my kids have been interested in. gymnastics for my youngest involved a 30 minute drive each way–with 2-3 hour practices! a huge block of my time was devoted to that sport. </p>
<p>even if we did school sports, that always meant team camps or individual skill camps. some individual camps were 1000 miles away and pretty pricey as well. if they were interested, we tried to find a way. shoes, jerseys, equipment…it adds up so fast. </p>
<p>the time with my boys traveling to these events was precious. i’d do it all again in a heartbeat. </p>
<p>yes, you want your saturdays and sundays as a family, but some of my best memories are the trips to the gym and back with the kids talking/studying/eating all the way. those special times with the kids alone in the car were wonderful.</p>
<p>i’ve even flown out to my son’s school just to spend the trip riding back home with him. there is a lot of good stuff that happens during that travel time.</p>
<p>After trying all of the traditional sports, basketball, soccer, baseball, my son found a passion in driving a race car. Pursuing this has pushed us both outside of our comfort zones farther than I ever imagined but the rewards have been so worth it.</p>
<p>We found that there are very few first generation racers, seemingly everyone has an uncle or dad or grandfather that used to race or still races. We jumped in knowing absolutely nothing and learned together as we went along. There have been very few situations in my adult life where I have been so lost. However, the closeness I developed with my son as we shared our successes (a few) and our failures (many) has been amazing.</p>
<p>My son is pretty quiet and easy going in general so to see the focus in his eyes and his determined demeanor when he straps into the car and heads out onto the track still takes my by surprise.</p>
<p>The best part has been when we work together to try to diagnose a problem or fix it once we figure out the issue. He approaches things so much differently than I do. His solution is often better than mine and constantly challenges my linear thinking.</p>
<p>Does a local rowing club have room on one of its trailers for your daughter’s boat? I’m asking because my daughter’s rowing club hauled several single sculls to regattas that belonged to adults not otherwise affiliated with her club.</p>
<p>D’s rowing club also had several adults (non club members) who carpooled to regattas with club members.</p>
<p>Why doesn’t your D row as a member of a rowing club? Many clubs have single scull divisions. That might make things easier for you.</p>
<p>Actually, I nixed trying out for rowing. My daughter was already involved in other sports and there was no way I was going to get her down to the river each day at dawn. </p>
<p>Fortunately she spent two years at grad school in the UK where they let graduate students compete. She finally got to try rowing and loved it…and got herself down to the river before dawn each day.</p>
<p>Yes, we will be using the boathouse trailer for an upcoming regatta.</p>
<p>The downside is that my d’s race is the first of the morning and we will have to wait around all day to help load up the trailer after the last event.</p>
<p>Also the trailer doesn’t necessarily go to the races in which my d will participate.</p>
<p>My son wanted to join the crew team when he started high school. At the first conditioning session, they were told to run two laps around the school. He lost interest in crew after that… :rolleyes:</p>
<p>This is just a very individual type decision and each family feels differently.</p>
<p>If you are asking how far others would go…yes, we’d do whatever it took to make the EC interests happen, and frankly, we have. It was a huge part of our lives with two kids heavily involved in ECs every afternoon, evening and weekends. We also live in a rural area and the driving distances to so many of their activities were far, and it meant a parent had to stay (I’m not even talking of actual events or competitions) the entire time because it was too far to drop them off. My husband and I each averaged about 100 miles per day per car. At night or on weekends, one parent might drive one kid to her thing and another attend with the other kid (dunno what I’d do if we had more than two kids!!). For example, on Saturdays, just for D2’s typical Saturday, one parent had a 7 hour day in order to go to ballet in one city for half day and to private voice lesson in another city in afternoon and the distances involved meant a seven hour excursion with her. In ski season, the races were often far away (as much as 1 1/2 to 2 hours) and the kid had to be there by 8 AM and so we often were leaving the house at 6:30 AM on Saturdays and Sundays and got home about 5:30 PM with that kid, not to mention standing in the frigid weather on the ski slope to watch the races. Same idea with theater, soccer, tennis, instrumental music (that usually was not as far away), and dance. When both my girls graduated, I bought a director’s chair that was embroidered with “dance mom” on it for the waiting room at our dance studio which was 25 miles away since I had sat in that waiting room most nights and weekends for ten years. :D</p>
<p>We sorta miss going to all their things on a regular basis as it was a huge part of our lives. Then, again, we still see all their events now that they no longer live at home but we have to travel much further, though it is not daily like before. But this weekend, we are off to drive six hours to NYC to see D2 perform and a week later we will drive over three hours to see D1’s exhibit in a museum.</p>
<p>In one of D1’s college app essays, in which she told a story of the many sides and interests of herself (she was the epitome of the well rounded kid type), she describes how one Saturday, she got up before dawn to travel 2 hours across the state for a ski race and as soon as it ended, parent drove her two hours to another city in the state for her All State Music auditions and she changed from ski racer to concert attire in the car and then another hour home, etc. This was a typical day in her life!</p>