Please God, Don't Let My Kid Be an Elite Athlete

If you feel personally attacked by this essay, just... read the whole thing.

May 22, 2025

“Sorry we can’t make it. We’re heading to Indiana for a soccer tournament.”

A dance competition. Hockey. Volleyball. Swimming. Baseball.

Remember when kids sports happened at your local field or the B.O.-infused high school gymnasium? Dance meant devoting an hour every week to shuffle-ball-changing, culminating in a single spring recital, featuring 7-year-old’s in shellacked makeup that could slay on RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Anyone else still a scarred from their days as a Larkin dancer?

So when I hear about families spending every weeknight schlepping kids across town, weekends at a tournament hours away, drinking chardonnay at the Ramada with their other exhausted parents… Well, I just wonder why?

I googled a local volleyball club that costs about $7,600 a year, which includes projected tournament expenses. It does not include gas, meals, and that other incalculable cost: time. And this is for a sport whose equipment includes knee pads, sneakers, and booty shorts. My thoughts and prayers are with you, hockey parents!

But, Molly! My kid is good! They may get a college scholarship.

Yes, college is unfathomably expensive. But if your kid plays a traveling sport for five years, that’s like… tens of thousands of dollars?

How many of these kids are going all the way with sports? How many get injured or simply burn out? If your kid loves their sport, and you have the time and money and patience, sure. But it does feel like an expensive way to maybe get college partially or fully paid for.

But, Molly! If my kid skips the traveling team, they’ll fall behind and there’s no way they’ll make the high school team!

How do we keep up with the Joneses’ child’s private tennis coach, and all those off-season strength and conditioning camps? I’m already seeing fourth graders fully committed to their One Sport of Choice.

The only thing I fully committed to at 11 was spending Saturday evenings watching SNICK.

I believe kids who really want to play One Sport should be able to join that hardcore team. But why they gotta ruin it for the rest of us? Making the high school tennis team shouldn’t feel as cutthroat as an episode of Survivor.

But, Molly! Sports build character!

I participated in T-ball, softball, and even a few baseball games when my brother’s team was short a player. Tap, jazz, ballet, figure skating. I played volleyball for years until the JV coach, mercifully if heartbreakingly, axed my mediocre ass.

I tried so many things. I sucked at most. But I did learn what it felt like to be a part of a team. I learned about consistency and dedication and hard work and rejection.

However, because most sports in the 90s were less time-intensive, I had free time. I spent my high school summers earning $6.50 an hour as a prep cook. I learned how to mince, chop, and properly season a soup. I was left to close at night, which meant sweeping, mopping and taking out the trash; counting cash, then hiding it in a paper bag in the fridge, and locking up with my own key.

These lessons endured notably longer than my ability to set a volleyball.

This sense of competition, the financial and time commitment for youth sports, it’s exhausting.

Why are we doing this? Has everyone gone mad?

And yet… yet…

My daughter Arlene is in gymnastics. We picked her particular gym because it didn’t feel intense. I know I don’t have the next Suni Lee here; I have an 8-year-old who loves cartwheels and practicing handsprings.

The last two years, she’s competed on their “team”. This added a second hour-long practice to our weeks, which is a lot, but doable. They host a few low-key meets every winter/spring that feel more like a recital than, say, the Olympic trials.

Last weekend, we attended the season’s final competition. For three-and-a-half miserable hours, my family sat in the world’s most uncomfortable chairs in a room chilled to meat locker status, watching our girl show off her bar, beam, floor, and tumbling skills for a cumulative 78 seconds.

Finally, the emcee approached the microphone, ready to hand out medals, I looked at my daughter with absolute pride. She did so well! She rocked her floor routine, and crushed her back hip circles. All that hard work paid off.

And for the Intermediate Youth Team 8 and Under bar results…

Her name wasn’t called.

And for the Intermediate Youth Team 8 and Under floor results…

Nope, not there either. Not for beam, nor tumble track. Certainly not for the all-around. Are these judges blind?

I text my husband, shivering on the other side of the gym:

Me: Did she really not place at all?
Him: I mean, if she didn’t, I’m pissed! Like WTF?? This whole thing is a joke.

After the awards, I gave Arlene a hug.

Me: You did so great!
Her: Mom, I almost cried. But so did the girl next to me, which made me feel better.
Me: Well, I thought you did amazing, sweetie.

Smiles on the outside. Fury on the inside.

I hoped my forced smile masked my seething rage.

Should we ask to see the scores? There is just no way she didn’t place. But then isn’t this how all parents feel about their kid? Do I really want to be THAT mom? How can I possibly say that “winning isn’t important” and then go all Karen on the judges for not agreeing that my child is a winner, goddammit?!

Because we hadn’t eaten for nearly five hours, our family celebrated Arlene’s accomplishment, judges be damned, with burgers. While waiting for our food, I checked my email and saw one with the subject: Awards Correction- Intermediate Youth Team 8 and Under

I opened it. Turns out, they messed up the scoring. Turns out, my girl placed in all the events. Turns out, another mom asked about the scores. Turns out, I was frickin’ right!

Guess what, Arlene! I exclaimed. They made a mistake and you placed in every event, and got third in the all-around!

Arlene perked up like a freshly watered houseplant.

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My little girl beamed, but my rage bloomed. The next morning, I fired off an email to a REAL gymnastics gym. One with a better website that takes gymnastics seriously.

That afternoon, they informed me that the monthly tuition is $444 for six hours a week, plus expenses for their six seasonal meets, which are all within Minnesota, but may include driving a few hours to places like Winona, Mankato, and Rochester. But don’t worry, they are on weekends.

I was ready to hand over my credit card, but paused.

OMG. This is how it happens, isn’t it?

This is how you end up forking over thousands of dollars and all of your free time.

As an adult woman, I would never dream of spending $444 a month on private pilates classes, or a weekly massage. It’s too extravagant. And yet, we do these things for our kids because that’s just what it takes and it costs what it costs.

It’s in moments like these, fueled by anxiety, anger, or a sense of FOMO, that I need to slow down. It’s when I make my worst decisions, the kind that fall out of alignment with my core values.

We don’t really want this right now. Arlene is perfectly content where she’s at.

I ended up emailing our current gym, and telling them we’re bumping down to one class a week for the summer. She will be back for team practices in the fall. That feels both supportive of her growth as a gymnast and doable with our summer schedule.

On the horizon, I see the parenting era of too many activities and not enough time. I’m not immune to the youth sports draw. I will do anything for my kids, even if it means spending every weekend in a loud sports center in Fargo or Des Moines, joining other parents for ~~chardonnay~~ a beer at a crummy hotel bar.

But I’m not ready to hand over all my time and money to sports just yet.

What things did you swear you’d never do as a parent/adult… but ended up doing anyway?