Not Just Child’s Play: Making The Hectic Work

OK, here’s the scenario — your younger son has a soccer game at 10 a.m. at a nearby field, but he has to be there by 9:30 for pictures with his order form and money ready to go.

Your older son has a soccer game at 11:30, but it’s an hour’s drive away, and it’s your turn to bring orange wedges for halftime.

You and your spouse can both go to the 10 a.m. game, but someone will have to leave by 10:20 to get to the second game on time.

After the game, because it’s lunch time, you know your son and his teammates will gang up on you and the other parents to stop at McDonald’s or Burger King because they’ll be starving. By the time you get home it’s 2:30 in the afternoon and you’ve got to get both sets of uniforms washed because the boys both have games again tomorrow.

When you finally catch your breath you realize that most of the day is gone and so is almost $100 between pictures, oranges, gas and lunch. You stop and think — “Is all this worth the investment of time and money?”

Time and money — We all want more time, and most of us want more money, too. And even if we have enough money, we certainly don’t like the idea of wasting any of it.

Still, sometimes the hustle and bustle of life with kids in today’s society seems to be an endless struggle not to allow both time and money to be sucked away too easily.

There always seems to be new gear to buy — soccer or baseball cleats, shin guards, bats, gloves, new dancing shoes or outfits — and none of those things are cheap. Then there’s the wear and tear on your vehicles to consider.

As youth sports and activities branch out, it’s not just driving to and from local practices and games that puts on the miles, but many of those practices and games end up being further and further away from home as we constantly seek the very best opportunities for our children. As the distances we travel increase, so do other expenses.

Despite your best efforts to pack all necessary drinks, meals and snacks, without fail you will probably end up shelling out money at the snack stand, gas station or local convenience store for additional items. The toll on your time increases, too.

What started out as an activity, close to home, where you could drop your child off and go back home to attend to chores and the like before returning to pick them up, often turns into a two-hour-plus commitment just for practices. You can’t run home in between drop-off and pickup, so you end up either staying and watching or finding some other way to bide the time. In addition, games or competitions can be even further away.

In any event, nothing you do replaces the time it takes to dust the house, run the vacuum, mow the lawn, weed the garden or do the laundry. But those things are still waiting for you when you get home.

Is it all worth it? Are the opportunities we provide for our children worth the investment of time and money it takes? Of course they are.

We are no different from the parents of any other generation in those terms. We ALL want to help provide our children with opportunities to experience things, grow, interact with others and learn. What’s different now is how providing those opportunities involves such a greater commitment of time and money — and that’s unfortunate, but, it’s still worth it, as long as parents continue to make sound judgments about weighing their overall investment against the gains the opportunities provide — and don’t feel guilty when the answer to that equation is no.

There’s got to be a balance, even when the pressures to do everything are there. And maybe part of that balance should be making sure our children are involved in helping with the chores that still need to be done. If the whole family needs to be invested in the activities, then the whole family needs to be invested in the sacrifices being made for those activities.

It’s not only fair, but a continuation of the life lessons we hope the opportunities are providing in the first place.

We may not like how the whole system has changed, but it won’t do any good to just long for days gone by. We must figure out the best way to take control of the situation, instead of letting the situation take control of us.

We can do this.

All it takes is more planning and cooperation between everyone involved and, in the end, our children will be better off for it.

How do you make this work in your household? Send suggestions tneditor@tnonline.com