Jacques: Not sure where your nephew swims...most year around programs (age group swimming) practice 5-6 days per week. Those that swim for their H.S. team practice 2X per day: once w/ the H.S. & once w/ the Club team. W/ club swimming, meets usually avg. about 1X per month.

BTW: I spoke with a swim mom over the summer that took her daughter out of gymnastics & put her in age group (year around swimming). She was thrilled that swimming was WAY cheaper than gymnastics!

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Jacques: Not sure where your nephew swims...most year around programs (age group swimming) practice 5-6 days per week. Those that swim for their H.S. team practice 2X per day: once w/ the H.S. & once w/ the Club team. W/ club swimming, meets usually avg. about 1X per month.

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He's in south Texas, and is a member of a swimming club. He's been at the pool every weekday this summer at 6:00 am and 5 pm. Same for Saturday. I think he's been to about 5 meets this summer, several out of town. He was just at a huge multi-day meet in Austin and the week before that was a city meet. And they were just out of town before that at another meet, and right before that their club hosted a meet (which was an insane amount of work for my sister).

The worst thing is my other nephew is in track. And he's young, but he's already getting noticed. (On a side note, I don't know where they get it, but both my nephews are unbeleivably athletic.)

Which means when my sister isn't at a swim meet she's at a track meet. Two sports that basically just chew your weekends up and spit them out.

Jacques: True, during Long Course, some clubs are known to have 2 practices per day, at least 2x per week.

I would bet that if all the money parents pour into select travel-team sports so little Johnny will be good enough to get a college athletic scholarship were instead invested, they would have enough to send Johnny to college and free up 20-40 hours per week. But then, they might not have the bragging rights that they won't admit really drive them to do this in the first place.

[This message has been edited by Its Texas Aggies, dammit (edited 8/15/2012 6:20p).]

Do you think most parents spend that money so their kids can earn an athletic scholarship? That's not why my kids were swimmers and a diver. One swam Div1 and one will soon dive Div1, but they participated in sports because they enjoyed it and it was incredibly good for them. They are incredibly fit and had the value of a strong team sport through high school.

It is no different than music lessons and buying expensive equipment.

I think many parents do it so they can relive their youths and brag about their extremely successful kids. There a lots of ways to be fit that don't costs thousands of dollars. I'm sure many don't fit this profile, but I'm seen plenty that I believe do. Getting a sense of worth from your kids' accomplishments is not healthy, IMHO.

There are MILLIONS of children that play soccer, baseball, tennis, golf, football, swim/dive, run track, etc.

The vast majority in my view simply want their kids to be active and have fun in a sport. They believe sports are good, competition is healthy, and a team environment is a good social activity.

A year round swim team may have 150 kids of all ages. I think only a small percentage of them realistically think about college scholarships nor are their parents trying to relive past glory.

I don't regret a penny of the money I paid for dues, coaches, and meet fees for my kids.

Sure it is possible for kids to be fit without spending thousands. But there is no better motivation than a team of some kind, with a coach, to get a kid out of the house and moving their body around. Simply telling your kids to "go exercise" isn't very productive.

Just speaking from my own observations, I think the time and money is a fear of falling behind.

When you're good at something (as my nephews are) and have a real chance to make something of yourself competing at the highest level, you fear losing your edge. You're afraid not to go to practice or put in the extra effort because someone else is. And you think missing one practice is going to put you behind. And parents try to one up each other pushing it and pushing it.

It becomes a compulsive thing ultimately. You spend so much time practicing and practicing and doing nothing but and you it gets to the point where you just don't know how to do anything else.