My kids don’t play sports (and they’re okay)
There was time in my childhood when my parents thought soccer lessons were a good thing. They secured me a spot on the local team, and I got a t-shirt.
I was not opposed to this plan because I had observed that children who play on soccer teams are often given treats after the game. Sometimes, they even get taken to McDonald’s.
The coaches put me in the back corner near the terrified goalie because I didn’t understand what it meant to “be more aggressive with the ball.” Being more aggressive with the ball meant getting kicked in the shins, and I was no fool.
We lost every game.
Even so, I came away with the idea that being involved in a sport was a good thing. It develops character. You learn how to lose. You learn how to win. You build friendships and practice cooperation. You learn how to cope when you get pneumonia from standing in the freezing rain for two hours while your teammates fight over a ball they could very well share.
When I had my own kids, my husband and I did the same thing. We got our kids involved.
Soccer: I got the t-shirt
Only, things had changed a bit since I was a kid. Sports involvement had become an expected thing. If you are a half-way decent parent, you enrolled your child in a sport. At least one. Per season.
If you don’t, you must be Amish, and if you’re Amish, people don’t know how to talk to you unless it’s about furniture.
When a neighbor found out my four-year-old didn’t play baseball, she offered to drive him herself. I had just given birth to twins, so my lack of initiative could be forgiven, but clearly an intervention was in order. “We’re not really into activities yet,” I said, bouncing two boys on my lap. “I kind of want him to enjoy playing at home, being a kid.”
“But he’s four!” she responded with a look that made me feel like he was thirty-six and still living at home with his cats. “What does he do?”
I looked around. At that moment, he was driving his cars around the kitchen island with his sisters. They were sharing. Cooperating. Learning to work together. Building relationships.
Huh.
Eventually, I got my act in order. I found something for those kids to do. My husband and I lugged equipment and traded kids and sat in dark parking lots and ate the fast food we said we didn’t eat and wrote checks and wondered if it was too early to look for product endorsements because dang, sports aren’t cheap.
My children were parsed out into different groups based on age and sometimes even gender because kids of different ages and genders don’t play together, Silly. My children became spectators to their siblings’ games instead of participants.
Some weeks, we spent every night away from home. We ate in the car or in the stands and did homework in hallways. I spent more time with my minivan than I did with my husband. We dragged sweaty kids home and sent them to bed too late and woke them up, cranky, in the morning. I choreographed our weekends so well, I felt like a dance instructor.
All so that my kids could be involved in something they would likely never, or rarely, do as adults.
“Mom, do we have to go anywhere today?” became their new mantra.
Then one day, I sat by my computer to register the kids for another semester of sports and music and church events. My dog-eared calendar sprawled out in front of me, covered in so many pencil marks, it looked like it was about to undergo cosmetic surgery.
My bank account wheezed.
I didn’t know how to make it all happen, and I felt exhausted at the thought. I did not like this life, this activity-driven life. I did not want to waste my motherhood in the carpool lane, and I did not want to watch my children live out their childhood on a field.
I realized I had been buying into a lie that busy is better, that activities are normal, that an interrupted family life is worth it if my kid can swim. I was teaching my children that they should grab as much good stuff as they can, instead of waiting for what is best.
And isn’t that the very thing I was trying to un-teach myself in my adult life?
Soccer is good. Football is good. Swimming is good.
But so is catching fireflies. And building tree forts. And playing tag and capture the flag and hide-and-go-seek. It is sweet to win the Little League Championship. But it is delicious to spend a whole Saturday morning in your pajamas with a book.
If they don’t play sports, what will they do?
When hours of the week are spent on sports, I wonder what is lost. I wonder if we can ever regain the value of unstructured time, that margin in life where kids can play, imagine, talk, explore, and create. The childhood that is full of secret codes and catching stuff and getting dirty. The childhood where dinner time is around a table and the fridge is covered in artwork the kids did that Saturday because they could.
I am not against sports. Please don’t misunderstand. I do not drive past the soccer fields on Saturday and hurl insults at the parents on the sidelines. I get it. Respect, soccer moms.
It’s just not for us. Not now. Our family culture has different priorities, and I’m comfortable enough in my motherhood now to accept the fact that what’s expected for most children to do is not the best for us.
It’s not the best use of our time, and it’s not the best use of our money.
That might be different for you—but if you are reading this and your soul cries out because you are so tired of hauling your kid to some activity you wish you could quit—oh, there is grace for that too. You can stop. You do not have to do any of it, and your child will turn out just fine. Hear me: he will be just fine.
In our home, we now spend nearly every evening at home, except Sunday. We linger around the table because there’s nowhere better to be. Then we get on the jammies and gather for family devotions. We sing. We pray. There is no rush—the words can slip in slowly if they want.
Saturdays are lazy, and I make pancakes. Last weekend, the kids built a fort out of plywood and an old side table they scavenged from a dumpster and logs from our wood pile. It is an eyesore to the entire neighborhood, and it is glorious.
Faith made Kya a crown from a palm tree, and she wore it around looking every bit like Pipi Longstocking until the wind caught it and almost blew her into New Mexico.
Kya before she blew into New Mexico
They played a Monopoly game for three days straight, and one of them cried when she lost, and I had to remind her that not everyone can win every time. Or if you’re like my old soccer teammates, not everyone can win ever.
But Jeff went out and played with them, and then friends came over with a football. The wound was soon forgotten.
The kids picked up the entire house, vacuumed, dusted, folded their laundry, cleaned out their dressers, dusted, took care of the pets, managed the dishes, and straightened the bathroom.
The five of them negotiated whether to play on the iPad for ten minutes each or watch a movie, because this mama won’t let them do both. Jeff made popcorn. When it was over, Kya read bedtime stories to the boys.
Sometimes, people ask me how my children will grow into adulthood without a sport to teach them all the things sports are supposed to teach them: Cooperation, sportsmanship, hard work, diligence, patience, practice, and teamwork. Won’t they feel jilted because no one ever stood on the sidelines and cheered for them?
I smile. They are gaining all of those skills, and more, just without the t-shirt.
Thank you for this.
What a beautiful article! My parents did not put us into sports, and I feel like I lost out on nothing. In high school, I was one if the first in my class to get a job. In addition, we actually had family time, and I helped bake and clean at home. ❤
Thank you, Luba. I cherish our family time together so much, and I’m thankful that we’re not scattered in the evenings or driving all over town on the weekends. This time is so fleeting, and I’d much rather spend the time with my kids than watching from the sidelines.
Yes! Last spring I signed my kids up for soccer, they put them on separate days which left me as an overworked bus driver going to practices and games all week long. I quickly burned out! This fall I left several friends speechless when I said we are not doing anything extracurricular. It has been the best thing. Instead of rich in around we are planting flowers and riding bikes! Thanks for the encouragement !
I love that you did this, Leli! Sometimes all we need is a little bit of space to be with our kids. Enjoy your time together!
Brilliant!
Thank you, Bev!
I finally took the girls back out of public school for similar reasons. Did you know even rural schools are pushing busyness, Buddhism and Moslem studies? It’s also nearly unheard of for first and second grade girls to not play at least one sport per season. We’ve decided no more activities unless they’re priorities. The girls are flourishing in homeschool and are much happier since we cut out multiple activities. Their behaviors have improved, too.
Kids get stressed, overwhelmed and burned out too. It’s amazing to see the difference between busy and productive.
Well-said. I have a neighbor who constantly pesters me about our children’s sports’ involvement level-rec. vs. travel. I also appreciated this article:
Don’t Play Travel Ball: Stay in the Rec League http://jimhamilton.info/2016/02/09/dont-play-travel-ball-stay-in-the-rec-league/
Love it, Kristy! You gave words to my feelings 🙂
Good article. I stopped my second son Zadok from playing soccer when he made select and games were on Sunday mornings often requiring long trips. Aaron stopped on his own when violin became more important to him. Zadok got involved in a band he brought together. I did see benefits to a point with sports, but Adrianna was in it one season and quit and I saw no loss to her childhood from that.
Our kids are extremely well bonded to each other, have said their childhood was wonderful and I’m glad I eventually got out of that cycle of “madness” that constant team sports required.
I absolutely hear you on this. For those of us whose child doesn’t have siblings with whom to learn these skills, these extra curricular settings can be pretty significant in our child’s development. Soccer/football/what-have-you with just Dad (or worse in some cases, Mom) leaves a lot to be desired. That said, even though we would have liked to involve him in soccer or football, the cost has been prohibitive. And yet, Jesus has ways of providing: now that he is in public school he plays soccer at every recess!!! (And he gets 4 of those.) It has been a great blessing to this Mama’s heart because while I wasn’t moved by the expectations of others to put him in sports, it was hard to see him missing out on something he was really wanting to do.
Loved this….Again!
Kristen, My family stepped off sports treadmill too. Our experience was similar, lots of sports, lots of late nights, cranky kids, hubby at one field, me at another. It was a great relief to stop that madness and stay home so kids had time to play creatively. I know, people look at you like you’re crazy when your kids don’t participate in sports and wonder if they will turn out to be decent humans. They do. If you can get along with your siblings, you can get along with anyone. If you can create, you can solve problems. If you have time to play, you will become an adult who isn’t always jumping through hoops to make someone else happy. Great article!
Amen!!!! I am about to start the soccer season at our house with 2 kids. Saturday I will sign my 8 and 7 year old and pay $50 each (really it costs $30 for a t-shirt!?), so that for the next 2/3 months we can have practice 2 times a week and games all day Saturday. “It’s good for them”, is what has been told to me by well meaning Aunts and Uncles (who I might add have said that they will help with practices and some cost, so it will help). They being single or having only one small child (that they struggle to take to Walmart by themselves) feel that I have somehow deprived my 5 children by never enrolling them in any “extra” activities. So the 2 oldest will try this rite of passage (more or less to calm the crazy relatives) and then I will go back to being a stay at home mom, who stays at home. And my children will go back to having decent bedtimes, calm baths and no crazy schedules.
Deciding not to be involved with sports was a difficult one for our family. My husband and I finally decided that a) we couldn’t handle the multiple-practices-per-week+weekend games schedule and b) sports likely wouldn’t be a skill our kids would use all through their lives.
Music, on the other hand, can be enjoyed at any skill level and for a person’s whole life. Voila! Decision made. So now we head into the city once a week for 2 hours’ worth of music lessons for the 4 kids. It’s not cheap, but I KNOW sports would be more. No weekend commitments, no competition, no parental politics. We all enjoy listening to each other practice, learn sharing when the piano must be shared, diligence by practicing daily, and how to be gracious to each other when mistakes get made.
We still believe that it’s really important to learn how to enjoy one’s body and how to move it, so we play outdoors with the kids when we can. Last summer my husband regularly played soccer with kids, and I often played tag in the evenings when it cooled down. We go hiking, we garden, we go to playgrounds, we like swimming at the community pool. I think we still get plenty of fun physical movement in our lives. And, if I were a sports mom, I’d be sitting on the bench watching instead of running around WITH the kids.
and music will last a lifetime. Soccer doesn’t. ; )
With tears of relief that someone else “gets it.” Thank you so much for your honesty, helping me to think it through more clearly…..I knew it was okay, but what you shared put things into persespective and made perfect sense, and gave concrete examples.
There’s also a downside if your kid happens to have a sport talent. Costs go way up. The time commitment goes up. The pressure goes up: to win, to win with a good attitude, to lose gracefully. But if your child happens to be a weak spot on the team, you got trouble. Or, if an ambitious super-involved, talented politicking parent can convince the coaches that it’s not their child but yours who is the cause of any team weaknesses…
The sport involvement dilemma is not an easy one to see ahead into unless you’ve been through it once and can read the signs. Looking back, I think they’re learning valuable lessons but probably at too early an age. You risk cynicism and disillusion but you may also get maturity and self-knowledge. Like everything, the good comes with the bad.