Dedication to sb - good/bad? - or just a choice?

[29dad]

We're one of those certifiable travel ball families as well. 15 year old DD plays on a travel ball team located 4 hours (!) from home. 13year old DS plays on a travel baseball team. And the 6 year old is about to start rec ball. It's a lifestyle definitely not for everyone, but to steal a line from Godfather 2, this is the life we've chosen.

And yet... there are times. I think it first hit me two summers ago. DD's 13U team had deperately tried to qualify for ASA/USA nationals all summer, and always came up one position short. It was down to the last tournament. One final chance witrh a field of 33 teams. The stress had been building all summer. It was a Saturday and we were about to play our 3rd or 4th game of the day. I was rushing to the gas station to get more ice for the cooler. On the way back to the fields I drove past one of Minnesota's 10,000 lakes and... I pulled over. I looked at the familes. Jet skis. Water skis. Boats. Frisbee. Picnics. Sun and relaxation. And I thought to myself, "what are we doing?" Anyway, we did win that tournament and we're still just as crazy as ever, but there are moments when i feel a small pang of regret. I hope that doesn't get me banned from DFP.

 

[CoogansBluff]

My daughter is dedicated to softball in the sense that she loves playing and practices hard in season and takes lessons and still practices in off season but she has other things she likes to do in life.

But don't all kids have other things they like to do? Maybe some don't. I mean it as a serious question. But I doubt there are many kids who only like softball (don't do well at school, don't have any other activities that take them out of the house, etc.) If a kid is like that, I would worry, especially the school part. But most of the kids I see in softball are into all sorts of things.

There was a recent thread about what our DD's do beside softball, and I was surprised at how active that many of them are. Mine doesn't have a lot of things she does - She plays softball, no other sports, puts a lot of time into school (self-motivated), and knows how to enjoy herself. Enjoys vacations, likes music, goes to concerts, an occasional school play. But 1A and 1B are school and softball. I'm not too worried that she doesn't have any other major hobbies right now. Softball won't last long, so she's decided to do the best she can at that during this small window of opportunity and then move on to something else. I think it's a personality thing. Some like to sample life, and others like to find one thing and dive in until there done with it.

 

[JJsqueeze]

Great thread. The only two caveats are:

a) make sure you are doing it for the right reasons (the player should want the travel ball life as much as or more than the parents) and;

b) realize that for 99.9% of the players, there is no future in fastpitch and these kids need to be prepared for what they are going to be doing for the rest of their lives once they peak at 18YO (high school) or 21YO (college).

Very true....BUT....the value of understanding the life lesson that struggling through the learning curve, having goals and achieving them is the thing I am after. It can be applied to anything. With my DDs it is softball and academics. Maybe at some point it becomes art, medicine, law..whatever. The point is that so many people never get after something and really dedicate themselves to it that they never learn this lesson. Not that softball is the only way to do this, take Chinamigarden's DD, not necessarily solely dedicated to softball, but clearly understands that she must practice and struggle through learning if she is playing 3 varsity sports and getting band solos. That is the value. Once a kid gets that then it can be applied anywhere and they will be successful. But there are MILLIONS of people across the nation that never really learn the lessons of hard work, delayed gratification, struggle etc and I think they are set up for long term failure. So when I hear there is no future in fastpitch I think it is BS. There is a future in fastpitch, but that future might be medicine where you apply the tools you learned in fastpitch to another pursuit.

It doesn't matter how this lesson is delivered, it doesn't have to be year round softball, doesn't have to be sports, but it must be delivered if someone wants to call themselves a good parent.

 

[softball_mom1999]

But don't all kids have other things they like to do?

I hope so. But based on the experience I have (which is all I can go off of), there are only so many hours in a day and due to work and school schedules, only so many available hours.

I would love to see how people balance their lives while doing TB.

 

[RubberBiscuit]

RB - I don't see a lot of that sentiment here. I'm sure I'm just not paying attention. But seems to be that this forum is full of folks who live 'the dedicated TB-A life,' so I feel less judged here than anywhere. In fact, I don't really feel that judged in general. I don't spend much time justifying the lifestyle. I'm not around many people who question it. I've made a lot of posts on this forum, but I've never felt the need to post anything that justifies the time and money I put into it. I feel pretty secure in that. I have spent a lot of time over the years questioning my own motives in an attempt to endure that I'm not living through my child, putting undue pressure on here, etc., but I don't feel overly criticized about that sort of thing here. Maybe it's selective reading.

Great challenge CB and maybe this spawns from something just deep inside of me.

In my child-raising years (almost over) I have heard many many warnings about "don't push your child too hard because it will completely alienate them or worst case make them question their meaning for life." I could have soooo easily told my DD "hey kid,....I think you are going at this a little too hard and I think you should defocus on sb and experience more casual variety in life". Then I wonder if I would have done that if DD would not have turned out to be such the goal-driven successful student and sports player that she is today. I am leaning that if I would have given her an easy way out from the hard work that she would not have accelled in school for example.

My inspiration with this thread is primarily about what my little brain has concluded here - provide a kid with a stretch-goal, that requires allot of hard work, and out plops a stongly adjusted adult (moreso than allowing a child to avoid the hard work it takes in going after and accomplishing the last 15% of skills in anything. Calling to attention here that it is easy to just "do" something versus pushing yourself hard to the point where you have maximized your capabilities in something.)

Another analogy is like when you have your child do a job around the house. Do you let your child just do an easy start of many jobs and then let them run off to other things without experienceing the many times not so glorious final moments of completing a job (including cleaning up) and then tasting the sense of accomplishent of truly finishing the job or reaching that goal???

I still lean in the direction that dedication to something - accomplishing that last 15% of your possible maximum performance level - is a wonderful maturation and character building process.

 

[RubberBiscuit]

We're one of those certifiable travel ball families as well. 15 year old DD plays on a travel ball team located 4 hours (!) from home. 13year old DS plays on a travel baseball team. And the 6 year old is about to start rec ball. It's a lifestyle definitely not for everyone, but to steal a line from Godfather 2, this is the life we've chosen.

And yet... there are times. I think it first hit me two summers ago. DD's 13U team had deperately tried to qualify for ASA/USA nationals all summer, and always came up one position short. It was down to the last tournament. One final chance witrh a field of 33 teams. The stress had been building all summer. It was a Saturday and we were about to play our 3rd or 4th game of the day. I was rushing to the gas station to get more ice for the cooler. On the way back to the fields I drove past one of Minnesota's 10,000 lakes and... I pulled over. I looked at the familes. Jet skis. Water skis. Boats. Frisbee. Picnics. Sun and relaxation. And I thought to myself, "what are we doing?" Anyway, we did win that tournament and we're still just as crazy as ever, but there are moments when i feel a small pang of regret. I hope that doesn't get me banned from DFP.

I see this as one of those downsides of being human where we so many times fall into believing "the grass has got to be greener,....."

I hate this phrase now-adays. As I get older I see more overall harm that has been done in concluding "the grass has got to be greener" versus ignoring this human response.

 

[JJsqueeze]

I think that's the point of contention. I'm dedicated to my husband and marriage but I also have other interests that don't involve him. My daughter is dedicated to softball in the sense that she loves playing and practices hard in season and takes lessons and still practices in off season but she has other things she likes to do in life.
Dedication, to the point where you sacrifice your time and relationships with others or have no time for other interests in your life is unhealthy, IMO. But like I said, it's your path to choose.

Edited to add:
Perhaps it's just a matter of reading a forum where everyone is talking about only one thing that makes the TB life seem so obsessive but honestly, when we were doing B-level, we had no life on weekends that wasn't sb related and had practices 2-3xs a week on top of work and school schedules so I don't really think so. LOL

I think you have it pretty well pegged in that if you are playing travel then a large portion of your spare time is going to be at a field and other activities are going to have to take a back seat. But that is no different than if a kid wants to excel at skiing, or tennis, or violin, etc. You don't have to kill everything else in your life, but you definitely have less time for other things. But the girls are part of something special that makes them unique and gives them a sense of pride. I can't pry my DDs club sweatshirt off of her. She is very proud that she is doing this thing better than all but maybe two girls in her entire middle school. It's her thing. You can't have a thing without giving something else up because as you said, there are only 24 hours in a day. She still goes to girl scouts, she still does things with non softball friends, but softball is her special thing and when there is a conflict in scheduling, it wins. There are plenty of girls at her school that do not have "their thing". I am sure their families spend more time on leisure activities than we do, or I should say different leisure activities. I personally think hanging out at a ballpark is pretty leisurely. I personally think these girls have a higher chance of making something destructive "their thing" in the near future.


As for it being unhealthy, I think that bell gets rung far too often and far too early with respect to life balance, etc. Humans are pretty robust creatures, spending a lot of time on something is not going to make them socially inept or mentally unstable. As long as we have God, food, shelter and love we are generally in pretty good shape.

 

[YOCOACH]

As many of you know, we are also a TB family. Does it take up a lot of time? Absolutely. Does it cost exorbitant amounts of money? You know it does. But it's what DD wants so we do our best to give her every opportunity to play the one sport she loves. Yes, she has tried many other sports...soccer, volleyball, basketball etc. but she has always had one true love and that has been softball. It's not just a game in this household, for us, it's a way of life. Most of our friends are parents from both, past teams I coached, and our current team, as well as the various people we meet along our journey. If I'm lucky, I get the grass cut during a week night that we aren't driving an hour to practice. If I'm really lucky, it hasn't rained that week and I won't have to. Many nights when we are off from TB, DD asks us to take her down to our old rec league fields to watch a game and we usually eat dinner at the concession stand. So for us, softball has been a blessing because it is our family time together.

DD has many other interests also. She plays piano so she practices that often as well as plays in public recitals and for the school choir when she's not singing in it. She loves the theater so she is usually in the school play every year. She sings in the school talent show and dances in it with her friends. If she's not doing any of these, she is studying or doing homework. When she is done, she will often text on her phone, Skype a friend (sometimes simultaneously while sitting in front of the television) or read a book. She has a good head on her shoulders and even at the age of 14 soon to be 15, still confides in us.

As others have said, she has learned many lessons by playing softball. She has learned a work ethic, loyalty, passion, how to manage her time properly to fit everything she wants to do in her schedule and many others too numerous to count. Just because we are a TB-A family doesn't mean that DD or us, as her parents and the family as a whole, has given up anything that is meaningful in our lives. We are fortunate that we have found something that helps glue us together and keeps us closer than anything else we could think to choose over softball. We still go to rec games to watch our friends' DD's play ball. We will go watch friends' DD's play from past TB teams when we get the chance or we are at the same tournament as their team. If there's something special that we want to do like window shop in a cute town we're playing at, we find time to do it at the end of the tourney day when games are over. DD and DW miss out on nothing. We do all this as a family and it's especially nice that DW loves it as much as DD and I do. For us, the benefits by far outweigh the detractions.

This life we have chosen is not for everyone, or even most. We don't force our lifestyle choices on others nor do we belittle those of others. I don't do it on here nor do I plan to and quite honestly, I don't feel in the least bit slighted or insulted on here for those choices. Are we nuts? Hell, I don't know. The one thing I do know is that without softball, DD would not be the same confident, driven person that she is today.

As an aside, DW said the other day, "You know, after this year, DD only has 3 more years until she's off to college. If she plays in college, we'll only have 4 more years of softball to watch. What do we do then?"

I replied, "We adopt a very fast 7 year old girl and do it again!"

 

[Cannonball]

... Today, she has a DH. I won't miss any of her games. I have this need to be there for the storm and live and die with every at bat. I often wonder what would have happened if I had not been a coach and if she had not grown up this way.

Since I mentioned this I thought I'd give an update. Tonight, BB was 3 for 3 with 5 walks. Four of the walks were on four pitches and not near the plate. So, no storm tonight.

 

[SCDad]

Softball is a life style. Most everyone on this board would rather be on the ball field than anywhere else. The personal growth of the player transcends.

Everyone knows, I am a high school guy. I moved to the best high school town. We also played the super travel route when younger. So we have been on both sides.

Though folks may want to disagree which side has more merit. Very few disagree the value of softball as a bonding agent between parents and players, developing self confidence to say NO, and getting away from the recliner, and text screen.