Summer’s coming at us fast, the days growing longer, bedtime inching later, one day melting into the next.  To be sure, things move at a quicker pace than they used to, which isn’t all bad.  But it’s not necessarily all good, either.

In a world where the school year is filled with competition at every turn:  which teacher (the best one?), which soccer team (did she make it?), which brand (the right kind?), summers ought to offer kids a break to enjoy the sun and surf.  Many positive things can be said about having a few days of boredom in our kids’ lives.

Of course, it wouldn’t be bad to offer them a break during the school year, either.  What would life look life if weekends weren’t spent at soccer tournaments but doing family activities?  What would it look like if kids gathered in the neighborhood to play baseball instead of running to practice three nights a week for league play?  What would it look like if 3-year olds didn’t join t-ball teams and 13-year olds weren’t worried about making “elite” teams? 

I’ve heard many parents lament the status of kids’ lives today, but the kids can’t participate in all of these things without drivers or payers or consent forms, so we play a bigger role in all of this than, perhaps, we’d like to admit.  A lot of research has been done on why things have gone haywire, and much of it comes down to survival of the fittest.  It’s natural for us to want our children to succeed, and the definition of success varies a little from family to family but, in the end, none of us want our kids to end up in the gutter, sad and alone.  Rationally, of course, we know that the road to the gutter isn’t paved with poor grades and missed goals.  But parents aren’t always rational when it comes to our kids.  There can be days, weeks, or years when we mistake good grades and athletic prowess as harbingers of a golden future for our children. In our more lucid moments, we know that this is not necessarily so:  the factors that go into raising confident, healthy, happy kids cannot be measured by As and Bs or the number of baskets scored. 

Please don’t misunderstand.  I think sports are good.  I think education is not only good but essential, fabulous, outstanding.  Many kids enjoy the process of learning and they thrive on the athletic field.  These kids want to be involved, and there is room for all of this in their 18 years of childhood.  The problem comes when we allow our kids to try to do everything at once, and the mountain of stress that creates for both our children and our families.  Unfortunately, for some children, the pressure to compete is extreme.  Sara Rimer wrote about the expectations girls face today, and, reading her article, I may have uttered an actual sigh of relief that I am not raising a girl.  Girls are not alone in this mess, not by a long shot, but Ms. Rimer’s article gives interesting insight into the differences that girls face.

In another NY Times article, one of my favorites, Michael Winesap wrote passionately about the intense competition to get into top colleges today.  He says:

What kind of kid doesn’t get into Harvard? Well, there was the charming boy I interviewed with 1560 SATs. He did cancer research in the summer; played two instruments in three orchestras; and composed his own music. He redid the computer system for his student paper, loved to cook and was writing his own cookbook. One of his specialties was snapper poached in tea and served with noodle cake.

At his age, when I got hungry, I made myself peanut butter and jam on white bread and got into Harvard.

He goes on to talk about his own children, who will not attend Harvard. 

My four [children] have been raised in an upper-middle-class world. They look around and see lots of avenues to success. My wife’s two brothers struggled as students at mainstream colleges and both have made wonderful full lives, one as a salesman, the other as a builder. Each found his own best path. Each knows excellence.

That day, running on the beach, I was lost in my thoughts when a voice startled me. “Pops, hey, Pops!” It was Sammy, one of my twins, who’s probably heading for a good state school. He was in his wetsuit, surfing alone in the 30-degree weather, the only other person on the beach. “What a day!” he yelled, and his joy filled my heart.

And who among us wouldn’t choose JOY for our child?  But the most poignant statement I’ve seen regarding all of the running around, making teams, participating in it all, had to be in Bill Pennington’s NY Times article (March 10, 2008).  Mr. Pennington wrote about the sacrifices families make to the god of children’s sports.  In it, he interviewed Pat Taylor, a college student who began playing soccer when he was just 4 years old but did not receive any scholarship offers:

He looks back fondly on his youth career but also wishes he knew at the start what he knows now about the process.

“The whole thing really is a crapshoot, but no one ever says that out loud,” he said. “On every team I played on, every single person there thought for sure that they would play in college. I thought so, too. Just by the numbers, it’s completely unrealistic.

“And if I had it to do over, I would have skipped a practice every now and then to go to a concert or a movie with my friends. I missed out on a lot of things for soccer. I wish I could have some of that time back.” 

I haven’t seen a finer comment on perspective in a long, long time.