Thank you for writing about this! My baby is only three months old and while I'm 100% on board with this philosophy, I'm already stressed about the external pressure I'll feel from peers to over-schedule our lives. I do think there's still much allure in the myth of the childhood passion-turned-superpower (see: King Richard), but those stories almost always involve a secretly unhappy or at least pressured adult child and a super ambitious parent figure. And now we have courageous athletes and artists like Naomi Osaka telling us that it all can be too much.
But here's another problem I can see surfacing: why has this country decided that (pre)school (and in the summer, camps and other courses) are our child care options?! It's hard to be a working parent and keep sanity when our schedules are dependent upon intricate systems that can be expensive and are always changing.
The disconnect between school schedules and work schedules is a whole insane topic of its own. Especially during COVID there's been no such thing as a consistent schedule. I am currently piecing together summer coverage week-by-week (which is also insanely expensive).
I’m 1000% for waiting til your children ask, nay beg, for extracurriculars. I think reading Peter Gray and Kim John Payne put me on that train and I’ve never looked back. My oldest is 10.5; he loves guitar with a passion and that’s the only lesson he takes. My almost 9yo plays the electric bass to jam with his brother. They, and my 6yo all have tons of unstructured, self-directed time to play, create, whatever. I believe they get more from their slapdash games on our neighborhood field than in organized team sports. They all love being in nature, drawing, reading (6yo doesn’t read yet), playing games, making up games, and Lego have been their main toy for the past 6 years. I can’t imagine they’re missing much from not doing extracurriculars.
I do sometimes wonder if this is a product of NYC and the relative friction of access to nature and the “neighborhood field.” We live 2 blocks from the park and I hope as they get older and can go there on their own it’s just a meeting place for them to be and meander even more.
I didn’t mean to come across as smug either. Parenting feels much like a game of chance - and mostly i think the kids will be alright. Certainly the ones who can consider doing or not doing all the activities. I also think my choice is selfish as i don’t want to transport them to this and that activity for as long as i can hold out!
Not read as smug! I think this is all more about the culture of pressure to be overscheduled more than a critique of any one's family doing what they do or how they approach these things. Last year when we were not in Brooklyn and had a yard it *was* a lot easier to let the kids just be outside for hours "being bored" or doing whatever they do. So, I think some of the sense of choice for each parent is probably also dictated by the environment.
Thank you for writing about this! My baby is only three months old and while I'm 100% on board with this philosophy, I'm already stressed about the external pressure I'll feel from peers to over-schedule our lives. I do think there's still much allure in the myth of the childhood passion-turned-superpower (see: King Richard), but those stories almost always involve a secretly unhappy or at least pressured adult child and a super ambitious parent figure. And now we have courageous athletes and artists like Naomi Osaka telling us that it all can be too much.
But here's another problem I can see surfacing: why has this country decided that (pre)school (and in the summer, camps and other courses) are our child care options?! It's hard to be a working parent and keep sanity when our schedules are dependent upon intricate systems that can be expensive and are always changing.
The disconnect between school schedules and work schedules is a whole insane topic of its own. Especially during COVID there's been no such thing as a consistent schedule. I am currently piecing together summer coverage week-by-week (which is also insanely expensive).
I’m 1000% for waiting til your children ask, nay beg, for extracurriculars. I think reading Peter Gray and Kim John Payne put me on that train and I’ve never looked back. My oldest is 10.5; he loves guitar with a passion and that’s the only lesson he takes. My almost 9yo plays the electric bass to jam with his brother. They, and my 6yo all have tons of unstructured, self-directed time to play, create, whatever. I believe they get more from their slapdash games on our neighborhood field than in organized team sports. They all love being in nature, drawing, reading (6yo doesn’t read yet), playing games, making up games, and Lego have been their main toy for the past 6 years. I can’t imagine they’re missing much from not doing extracurriculars.
I do sometimes wonder if this is a product of NYC and the relative friction of access to nature and the “neighborhood field.” We live 2 blocks from the park and I hope as they get older and can go there on their own it’s just a meeting place for them to be and meander even more.
I didn’t mean to come across as smug either. Parenting feels much like a game of chance - and mostly i think the kids will be alright. Certainly the ones who can consider doing or not doing all the activities. I also think my choice is selfish as i don’t want to transport them to this and that activity for as long as i can hold out!
Not read as smug! I think this is all more about the culture of pressure to be overscheduled more than a critique of any one's family doing what they do or how they approach these things. Last year when we were not in Brooklyn and had a yard it *was* a lot easier to let the kids just be outside for hours "being bored" or doing whatever they do. So, I think some of the sense of choice for each parent is probably also dictated by the environment.