@gwnorth Didn’t I post somewhere that I am the 3rd Earl of Cantaford on Nuecar? Those extracurriculars keep our traditions puttering along, otherwise they just may break down, and then who knows where we will be stuck?
I know that sometimes there are potholes along the way, and unexpected detours, but our old noble ideals will keep us going, and we will be good British sports about it too. It won’t do to dodge our responsibilities and will follow our traditions unless the King issues a fiat.
I’m willing to admit that we have gone into debt for ECs. We don’t have a lot of money, but when one of our Ds got a scholarship that covered expensive training we were so happy for her. Then we realized that even without paying for the training it was still expensive for the travel, competitions, and ancillary things. Additionally, with our older D getting her sport covered, traveling all over for summer programs, etc because of her scholarship, we were in a position where it didn’t feel fair to make younger D sit home doing nothing. We homeschool, so free school stuff wasn’t an option for us. So younger D did the same sport as her sister for awhile, and we even found a coach for awhile that took pity on us and gave us a significant sibling discount- but all the competitions and travel now doubled plus some training. Just this week D2 was accepted into a selective summer program- her first time applying to one- and we are now looking at more debt to pay for it. Her sister has been out of the country twice and across it twice more- this is her only time doing something special. My husband felt we couldn’t say no. Could we? Yes… should we have? Probably… but it’s not so black and white imo.
Club sports are big money in our part of the country. The good coaches are full time coaches making high 2 to low 3 figures to coach a couple of club teams. Parents are willing to pay a lot and I would not be surprised if they were borrowing. Over the years, I spent a lot on my D’s ECs (only child with many talents - multiple instruments, many sports, studio art, etc.) because I wanted her to be well rounded, not because of college. But I could easily afford it. Many of her teammates’ parents were hoping for it to pay off in college scholarships though, which I repeatedly told them was not going to happen. I was not wrong.
“So many extracurriculars are a result of privilege. So glad the admissions folks are giving jobs and family responsibilities equal weight with the more traditional ECs these days.”
That may be the case but by and large private colleges (RUs, LACs ) prefer students with expensive ECs and coming from upper middle class and wealthier families. The New York Times interactive tool while a couple of years old, gives good info on the wealth at these places. It’s only when you get to state flagships that you start to see more economic diversity, which is not surprising since that’s one of the goals of public Us.
@katliamom That is our parenting philosophy. It isn’t due to costs. It is due to what we firmly believe is the way to promote the healthy lifelong ability to self-entertain without days being regulated or scheduled to some activity.
Miss the days (our days I guess) of kids simply going outside and playing with the neighborhood kids for hours until they were forced to come home (darkness). Sandlot or pickup sports of any kind, capture the flag across a whole neighborhood, hanging out and talking for hours with that girl/guy you had a crush on, etc.
Today it’s schedule, schedule, schedule and a lot of it requires mom or dad for transportation and payment. Was happy S didn’t press us for “elite travel ball” over the HS summers. Played on local teams to get extra reps but also was able to get a job. Was a great thing as he wasn’t going to be drafted and he started paying for things himself! D is following in those footsteps which is nice to see.
Still, driving through the neighborhood, you almost never see kids outside. They’re doing things, just not in the neighborhood.
That said, D’s musical theater involvement, camps, lessons, etc are pretty darn expensive. Annually more than tuition at our instate flagship. At least we don’t have the travel involved.
Club sports huge in our area as well - Field Hockey, Lacrosse, Ice Hockey you name it. Smaller high school (around 1000) but in a more affluent area so if your child wants to make a varsity team, most likely they need to play club at some point.
Obviously there is a happy medium of too many clubs and too little unscheduled time. I would have loved for my kids to grow up in a neighborhood with friends spilling out of the houses, playing in yards and hanging out until dark. We purposely bought a house in a newer neighborhood years back with lots of young families. Having grown up in rural Maine I had always wanted friends close at hand growing up.
However the majority of their friends are tied up with clubs and lessons so for them to have time with their friends, often they need to go to a camp or join a club sport. We have enjoyed and are still enjoying our time with club sports but not going into debt doing it.
BTW local and school sports aren’t free anymore either - between my 4 kids involved in one sport each a season it is well over $1000/season in fees, uniforms etc.
"Recently, we laughed that our bank account actually has the most money in it ever this year, our son’s first year of college.
Why? Because his college tuition was paid out of our 529 plan this year… and we are not paying for his tennis lessons, a huge expense every other year before now.
We also are saving on food. For just the two of us, an egg and a piece of bread each works for dinner some nights! A local take-out place teased us that they really miss our son, because they are losing income since he went to college and we are not going there as often. When he picked up food from there when he was home during a recent break, they fussed over him and gave him a free dessert!"
One of the things I mention to people about the cost of college is they have to consider what they are NOT spending while their kids are away. Both my kids had extracurriculars that probably ran us $2-3k per year. That money was factored in when we were considering what we could afford. You are right about food. If you don’t start going out more you will save money on food. With both kids out of the house it amounts to around $600 a year or so at least. It didn’t make as much of an impact but the water bill dropped noticeably too. 2 less people to shower, flush and do laundry for.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek Judging by your nic, that parenting philosophy has worked out just great for your kiddo 
@Momtofourkids Yeah it’s amazing what regular HS sports cost today. I know with certainty when I was in HS (80s), we didn’t pay for anything. We were given uniforms and returned them each yr (BTW - no new uniforms my four yrs of school). S played varsity baseball all four yrs. Had to pay for new uniforms each yr, which meant new matching team cleats, etc. Was a few hundred per season. We also had to pay for non league games (preseason tournaments, practice games, etc.) It got to be so expensive I organized a golf tournament fundraiser for three years to cover a lot of additional costs. Still had to pay for uniforms as the proceeds mainly went to field maintenance, new equipment, etc.
Just spoke to a buddy of mine this weekend. He just scheduled a summers worth of travel for his son’s baseball team. Will cost him 3k for travel all over FL and that’s with driving. Imagine it would be at least double that if they played out of state.
My brother takes his competitive gymnastics daughters all over the country. One is highly nationally ranked, but I don’t hear any mention of the olympics so not sure what the money is for, Lots of big trophies in that house though!
“One is highly nationally ranked, but I don’t hear any mention of the olympics so not sure what the money is for”
College scholarships?
Don’t know if that’s the plan as she is highly
academic as well. We’ll see.
Some top academic schools are Div1 in women’s gymnastics.
Stanford
Cal
UMich
UNC
W&M
UCLA
offer scholarships
Brown
Cornell
Penn
Yale
do not offer scholarships but being a recruited athlete would be a big hook.
^ I meant I don’t know if she wants to continue as I’ve not heard my brother discuss that and she’ll be applying for school this summer / fall. She’s a HYPSM academic candidate. Certainly wouldn’t hurt her chances but I don’t think that the motivation.
@rickle1 there is not always some pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – I had my girls doing those things because they loved it and they got something positive out of it that I can still see has stayed with them when those activities were complete. There is definitely valuable things to be learned from high levels of commitment and competition in and of itself.
Just so you know, not everyone who lets their kids play club sports is fanatical and delusional. I agree that pay to play has done damage to sports, and is probably the reason soccer hasn’t yet taken off as a major sport in the US. I have no expectation my kid will get a scholarship from sports. It actually bums me out that he’s likely to get an admissions boost from it, a fact I didn’t know until recently. I think that’s stupid, and probably the first thing we should change about college admissions.
But I do know that his sport has given him discipline, athleticism, purpose, and much, much joy. It’s great especially during adolescence for kids to have two social circles–one in school and one out of school. During the dark period, he misses his sport and his teammates. His coach has been an excellent role model, and sees it as his job to help us as parents to raise young men with good values, not just players. Just know that there are many people who are quite capable of keeping club sports in perspective, and they do tend to seek out teams where the parents are similar. They also willingly and happily sponsor scholarship kids on their team. (Yes, those of us who can afford it pay the fees, buy lunch for, and give rides to kids who have fewer means.) Am I saying there isn’t a whole lot of crazy in youth sports? Heck no. Some of the biggest nuts can be found on the sidelines on a Saturday morning. But there are also a lot of good people, and it sure is a great life skill for the kids to know how to tell the difference.
When our kids were little, we tried the “old time” play with neighborhood kids in the summer thing because I didn’t work in the summer. Guess what? There were no neighborhood kids to play with because they were all in scheduled activities ALL summer long, or their parents worked and they weren’t allowed to go outside until mom got home. There’s only so much you can do to buck American culture. Playing in the neighborhood after school is also a privilege for those families with a stay at home parent. So please remember that those of you who speak about letting the kids “just play” are speaking from a different kind of privileged position, where you live in safe neighborhoods with lots of stay at home parents. Many kids whose parents don’t put their kids in activities end up playing lots of video games inside all day in the summer.
Our D (HS frosh) has been playing club soccer, with many of the same teammates, since the 3rd grade. I’d say their team is 70% soccer and 30% social club. They recently won the state title in their division so they’ll be playing at regionals (out of state) soon. Inexpensive? No. But she’s in great physical condition and I think that’s important, in the long run, to her academics (you can’t just study all day). Or S (junior at Stanford) plays intramural soccer and hits the climbing wall to get some physical activity and fresh air in. Important IMO.
Ours did gymnastics and swim at the local Y, when little… Expensive programs weren’t needed. Kid ballet didnt cost much. Both did violin, first through the lower school, because it’s a long tradition in DH’s family. D2 was precocious, for a while, which started to cost more, with better lessons, youth orchestra, and summer camp (once or twice away, but other times locally with her teacher.) She also played and sang in school. But D1 wasnt interested in an equal cost opp. They did school sports and the only cost was cleats, a lacrosse or field hockey stick or shin guards. They got the sense of discipline, learned to follow coaches, adapt to different standards, socialize and play fair.
Overscheduled? Not. High $$? No, except for music. And they loved it all. But we fit it to family needs, not visions of greatness.
We weren’t out to make them uber competitive. In fact, they were lousy at sports. We didnt feel becoming All State in sports was a life need (though D2 was AS in orch.)
Not everything needs to be uber competitive. And I can’t even tell you if there are club sports in this area.
Unless you’re a recruit, you don’t get into college just bc your family spent lots of money.
^ agreed…but they spend big bucks per kid…like 500 per month, per kid for many many yrs, plus travel, etc. You’d think there was a ultimate destination.
To your point, however, they are fierce competitors. I think they like competition and winning more than the sport itself. I once asked my niece what she liked about gymnastics and she said . “Winning!”. I then asked well what happens when you don’t win, and without hesitation she responded, “That’s never happened”. Same thing in track. Her dad , my brother, is a success machine so it doesn’t surprise me. Will be interesting to see what happens when she’s not on the top step of the platform. I teach my kids there is always somewhat more talented which is why you have to do the work.