The Parenting Economy
My six year old daughter has a talent for hitting a baseball. She naturally uses the correct form and follows through and everything. We’ve been thinking about signing her up for Little League, which (if I remember correctly; they don’t post it online) costs over $50, plus required fundraising.
My nine year old daughter enjoys basketball. I’ve been thinking I ought to sign her up for something, too, but they don’t have a school team, and I haven’t found anything else that would work.
But for goodness’ sake, do I really need to sign them up for these things in order to be a good parent?
All too often, we think that’s the case. Valerie Zercher-Weaver points out in Sojourners magazine that we think we have to spend money in order to be good parents (or at least that’s what advertisers want us to think). It’s not just toys. I don’t buy my kids a lot of toys (although somehow they still have plenty), but I do fall into the trap of thinking that if I don’t buy them classes and lessons and other experiences I’m not a good enough parent.
Maybe I should go about this differently. Maybe I should spend time playing baseball and basketball with my kids, and make sure they have time and opportunity to play with friends. Do they really need to be in structured programs, especially at a young age?
My nine year old says she doesn’t care about being on a team; she just likes playing basketball with her friends. So that’s an easy decision. I’m still not sure about the Little League.
This post has 5 comments
January 27th, 2009
Excellent points. We used to enroll my nearly 6-year old daughter in classes and she never really enjoyed them. She’s athletic and very interested in signing and dancing. We spent money and never saw her enjoy them. Turns out, after some good talks, all she wants to do is enjoy those activities with us–her parents–and her friends. Revelation! We do ask her now if she wants to enroll in a class every quarter or so, but her answer is the same: no, let’s spend time together doing these things. We don’t spend the money and we feel even better as parents. Again, great points. Thanks!
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January 28th, 2009
The spending money is part of it, but sometimes I’ve caught myself wondering if I’m a good enough parent simply because I don’t schedule enough activities for my child, costly or otherwise. Recently we learned from a parent of a preschool child that her son spends Sunday at Hebrew school, soccer, and swimming. Another friend of ours enrolled the five-year-old in soccer and music classes. We haven’t enrolled Iris in anything; she attends a great preschool that has activities Mon-Thurs, including music and dance classes once a week. I feel like that should be enough–but virtually all her classmates we’ve talked to are signed up for other stuff. But we like our downtime; when there’s a weekend with nothing on the calendar, I feel glad that we didn’t sign up for soccer/ballet/art/cooking/karate/juggling/etc. It’s nice not to have to be somewhere on time all the time.
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January 28th, 2009
So, not being a parent, I don’t really “get” this topic on the same level; no one gives me parent-guilt or parent-pressure or anything. But just the idea of “I should sign my kid up for [blank]“–not you in particular, just in general–makes me shrink back a little; I think there’s a big difference between parents signing their kids up for something and kids asking to do something, and as a kid I did not want to be told I was getting “signed up” for anything.
Yet I took a LOT of classes and lessons and things throughout my childhood, more than anyone else in the family, I think–I really liked doing stuff like that. They enriched my life, but I wouldn’t have enjoyed them so much if I’d been told I was going to do them. I also appreciated that I was allowed to quit any activity (after the period of time I had committed to was over) when I wasn’t interested any more. I’ve found since then that that isn’t the case for lots of kids, whether in my generation or the current generation.
So, not that I’m trying to give you advice on motherhood (!!!), but based on my own experiences with sports… there was a long time when I was content to just play around the neighborhood, and then eventually I felt like I wanted to play in a more structured way–I think I started playing basketball on the school team in fifth grade. I played through eighth grade and then had no regrets about giving it up. Maybe your kids will decide they want to play structured sports sooner than me, or later, or never.
I think the ability to figure out how to spend unstructured time–and enjoy it–is, like, one of the most important skills kids can learn. It will serve them well their whole lives.
January 28th, 2009
Hi, Wendy. Most kids younger than 6 really can’t know what’s out there and can’t conceptualize the possibilities without trying it. Some kids, like my daughter, say no to just about everything. She is an exceptionally fast learner, does very well at school, is very physically active naturally, and very interested in things. However, when it comes to doing something new, if it’s not within her already existing routine, she’ll say no 999 times out of 1,000. This is pretty common among kids. And most of the things we get her to try, she ends up liking, although at some point I think she believes it was her idea to begin with. (Totally fine!) As a parent, you want your kid to experience things to learn what’s out there and what they like or not. There is definitely a lot of marketing aimed at getting parents to spend money on their kids in this manner. The great advice here in Kathleen’s article is aimed at realizing that what’s most valuable to one’s child often involves activities that don’t require any direct monetary expenditures.
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January 28th, 2009
For not being a mom, Wendy’s pretty smart about kids.
We went a number of years not signing up for stuff, because our older son so desperately needed his down time. We’ve only ever done one class — we did taekwondo. They finished their black belts in September, and haven’t been interested in going back — so we haven’t gone. Yes, it’s saving us money — but that’s not why we stopped going.
I think you’re right to look at this very carefully, and think about what the kid will get out of it. A lot of times it’s not the thing you think. My kids got martial-arts training, but what meant most to them was the community, I think.
I wonder if the kids, and you, wouldn’t benefit from more time spent being physically active together. It could be that since they’ve had a taste of it, biking to school, that they’d like more.
Wait for them to ask about group stuff, then explore it together. The one time my younger ever asked about soccer, the idea that he’d have to practice several times a week and give up chunks of his weekends pretty much killed that idea, as far as he was concerned.
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