Sports parents: Can we rethink youth commitments, so we have less stress in Our Best Life?

An actual text I got from a friend, about our daughters’ 6:30 p.m. Monday soccer game: “I can get the girls from library to (the park) with some food in between if she wants? Do you want to take them to the Force after the game if they aren’t too tired? I can pick up at 8:30 and bring them home.”

This kind of schedule has become normal for millions of American families. Thankfully, our post-COVID work-from-home lives, the rush is more doable. But we plan our lives around our kids’ sports. We split up on weekends. We rarely eat dinner together on weeknights. (I am writing this column from the baseball field. I packed leftover pizza in a cooler.)

Let me pause here to make clear that I love youth sports. I am a decent swimmer, and I played a couple seasons of soccer and softball as a kid, but that was back when kids had more options to play sports at more casual level, in their own towns.

My kids are competent athletes, and I adore watching them compete — in swimming, soccer, baseball, hockey and lacrosse. (Sorry, track, but that requires a more patient kind of parent.) I enjoy the parents I get to cheer and socialize with. I know I’ll miss these days when they’re gone.

But if we only get so many days, and so many weekends, with our kids, why do we make them so frantic?

Maybe because we feel like we have no choice. Once our kids are past second grade, casual recreation opportunities disappear. Maybe we worry that if other kids are playing club and taking private lessons, our kids must too. Otherwise, they won’t make the high school team.

Let’s put this in perspective. These are kids playing a game. The vast majority will never compete professionally. And while it’s a laudable idea that travel tournaments can be family events, that doesn’t work when you have two kids in different sports — or once your teenager would rather hang out with his friends in between games.

Here’s one dad on Reddit: “My son is in college now and I don’t regret going to all of his games when he was younger. It was fun and I miss watching him compete. What I do regret is having him involved year round on travel teams. That sucked up all the time/money that could have gone towards a normal vacation.”

You know moms aren’t planning these schedules.

(I hope this column doesn’t become fodder for bro dads on Facebook to bash me as a wimpy unicorn. Although it’s amazing how fast the conversations can get fraught on a community Facebook page.)

I realize that my family is fortunate, that sports are a choice, and that no one is forced to play. But why is status quo the only choice?

The current state of youth sports is not a force of nature; it wasn’t this fierce when we were kids. It’s an industry worth $37.5 billion, persuading parents year after year to spend more time and more money and more energy on their kids’ athletic pursuits.

We – the current generation of youth sports parents – could fight back. We could try to wrangle sports back into moderation by demanding organizations schedule teams in closer towns. We could bring back the more casual, city-run sports, like Rocky River Little League, where kids of all levels grades 3-6 play behind the elementary school on weeknights from April to July and the community camaraderie feels like a gift. Or like summer swim teams at city pools. Those programs are pure fun.

We could agree to limit the stress on ourselves and our kids. We could spend holiday weekends hanging out with our families, rather than dividing up, driving all over and rushing from field to field.

Maybe then more kids would participate in sports.

Because while some kids are playing more sports, at higher levels, the total number of kids playing sports is dropping for kids 6 to 17, faster for kids 12 and up.

In 2016-17 in Ohio, 61% of children aged 6 to 17 participated in sports teams or took sports lessons. By 2021-22, this number dropped to 56.3%. Nationally, youth sports participation in the United States dropped 7.3% in the same period.

Kids can learn so many lessons playing sports. Sports help them value exercise and healthy eating. Sports develop confidence, self-esteem and social skills. Above all, they’re fun.

But not at the expense of your family’s sanity.

Cleveland.com content director Laura Johnston writes weekly about life in her 40s in the column, Our Best Life. Subscribe to the newsletter to get the column delivered to your inbox Friday mornings. Or find her on Instagram @ourbestlifecle.