your kids. After all, the youth sports industry only continues to grow, making Activity Culture the norm—and to resist is countercultural. WHEN SPORTS STOP BEING PLAY So how do you stop the intrinsic force pulling your family into the Activity Culture vortex? Start by limiting your kids to one sport or ex- tracurricular per season. Maybe change from travel ball to rec ball for a season. Ask them which extracurriculars they love. “Don’t force your kid to do what they don’t love,” says Publisher Amy L. Foreman. “Just be- cause you loved softball doesn’t mean your kid will love it.”Will it be disappointing if they don’t choose the sport you want? Sure—but it’ll save you time, money, and stress in the long run. And even if they do enjoy it now, chances are they won’t later. “Today’s sports culture exposes children to too much, too soon,” authors of Beyond Winning: Smart Parenting In A Toxic Sports Environment write. “We want to apply the brakes a bit and give kids time to grow at a more appropriate pace.”
activities, with over an hour of that devoted to attending practices and competitions.
describes “personal branding” in her article “Elite College Admissions Have Turned Students Into Brands,” saying, “Students who brand themselves too early or too definitively risk missing out on the kind of exploration that will prepare them for adult life.” Children need opportunities to achieve, but they also need room to rest, fail, wander, and discover who they are apart from what they accomplish. “Do what’s truly going to make your family happy,” dares journalist Anna Nordberg in her article “The Parents Who Are Saying No to Activities Culture–and Why.”“If that is competitive sports, like it is for many families I know, that is wonderful. If you are a family who wants to keep to the middle road of rec sports or sandlot games, fight for that as long as you can. And if your kid wants to sit home making houses for stuffed mice out of cardboard, that’s fantastic too. There’s a college essay in there somewhere.” Remember: The goal is not to raise impressive children. The goal is to raise healthy adults.
HOW SPORTS CONVEY STATUS Author Linda Flanagan argues in Take Back the Game that youth sports often become status symbols—not just for children, but for parents as well. Participation in elite sports increasingly reflects a family’s financial re- sources as much as athletic ability. THE FINANCIAL WEIGHT The 2024 National Youth Sports Parent Survey reveals that families in the sample spent an average of $1,015.64 annually on their child’s primary sport—and approximately $475 on their child’s other sports. Bill Lennon wrote in his 2017 article for Medium , “The average cost to participate on a travel baseball team is in the ballpark of $1,900, not including the actual travel costs for players and parents to attend tournaments.” Needless to say, it’s not cheap to participate in one sport, much less in multiple sports. Project Play points out many of the challenges youth sports face, including financial, racial, gender, and recreational space barriers. Yet it’s becoming harder than ever to resist the pull to overcommit
EXCELLENCE WITHOUT EXHAUSTION College is important, but Sarah Bernstein
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