The toddler extracurricular complex

Expectation, guilt, and feeling compelled to participate

When my therapist probed into my reservations about moving back to Brooklyn, the best answer I could articulate is that I didn’t want to compete for spots in extracurricular activities anymore. I have recollections, after Ada was born, of being on parent listservs that offered copious classes for barely sentient babies; “Baby DJ classes for 9 months and up!” read one ad that was served to me again and again. There was an abundance of music, dance, language, and other niche classes—the choice was frankly overwhelming—and often for babies where the baby literally does nothing and the parent sings or moves in sort of baby-like way and wonders why he/she spent $45 for that 60 minutes of identity-draining pseudo-stimuli. 

Yet, the competition for these classes is fierce, and the need for validation even fiercer—that the kid enjoyed or got something from the class, that it was “worth” your money, or at least you got a cute picture to share that you were there, that your kid didn’t melt down before even crossing the threshold into the classroom.

I first felt the pressure to sign up for something — swim, movement, music, story time, puppet shows, language class, etc. when Ada was just a newborn but recognized the ferocity with which it crept into my psyche around the time she turned two. I did a deep dive into the abundant options, and was paralyzed by the offering, but also the experience that nearly everything of interest was already full or sold out. The idea that everyone had thought about signing up before me, suggested an underworld where mothers everywhere were just more on top of their shit, and it drove me mad.

At first I was determined to get into swimming. This was later ruled out when it was revealed the waitlist was 2 years long and it was $68 for each 45 minute session and quite far from our apartment. This didn’t seem like a good idea for a kid who didn’t even like to get her head wet.

Dance (“movement”) and soccer seemed like better bets. To sign up for dance, my gmail alert went off one morning that registration would open at 9 a.m. I was on the subway en route to my office in midtown, so I promptly got OFF the subway, found a nearby coffee shop with wifi, then maniacally refreshed the registration page to grab a spot in a Saturday morning 3s class at Mark Morris. I watched the dozen or so spots disappear in a matter of three minutes, before it was actually 9 a.m., and felt the momentary satisfaction that Ada had gotten one of those spots. In retrospect this behavior was insane—and the way every other parent who also got into that class but pretended they too hadn’t acted maniacally—is also insane. 

Ada subsequently hated the class; the first 4 weeks she refused to even go in the room, and the following four weeks she went in and sat against the wall, refusing to participate. Most of what she seemed to reject was that I wanted her to go, a power battle she would win, week after week; the teacher was also sharp and disciplinarian, and forcefully corrected the children’s misuse of pronouns, which didn’t help our case.

While sitting outside the room where the class was taking place, Jacob and I would have a conversation with Ada about persistence. How we had to just show up even if it was scary. How the important thing was to try, while clearly not even believing it ourselves. She remembers absolutely nothing of this supposedly teachable moment, other than her dislike for those dance classes and her mistrust of the teacher. 

Soccer was a similar disaster. Ada was four, and I thought team sports might be fun for her. She makes friends easily, and this seemed low pressure, and next to the farmers’ market where we went most Saturdays anyways. But it was hot, and Ada adamantly rejected the notion of a game with rules and competition. She explicitly stated that she didn’t like activities with winners and losers, and scoring goals was “stupid,” making it unlikely to motivate her.

The pandemic offered an inadvertent reprieve from the pressure to participate in anything. Going outside was an accomplishment. Working while childcare-less was an accomplishment. Cooking all the meals and bathing the children was an accomplishment.  And honestly, this shift was one of the few blissful parts of it. 

When activities started to open up again, I told myself to not get overzealous. The kids were happy doing our freestyle hikes and playing in the mulch pile for hours on end. I knew, rationally, that less was more, and that anything I signed the kids up for, i’d likely regret.

But Julian was excited about soccer, which upstate is $40-and-not-$400 (aka like Brooklyn) for the season, including a jersey and a ball (i.e. low commitment, low parent guilt), and Ada was excited to try ceramics classes, which was after school on Tuesdays. 

I’d drop Ada off at Kingston Ceramics Studio, and she would rush in with the mix of kids a few years older than her. She was prolific, and after a few sessions came home with a mushroom house, a tray, a snail, a tree, and a bunny that looks like Donnie Darko. It occurred to me at some point the we’d come a long way from miserable dance class. That the delight she shared in showing me what she’d made, and talking about the techniques she’d learned over ice cream after class, was an older, more mature kid. But I also realized she thrived because I wasn’t there. I didn’t inadvertently shroud her with pressure. I didn’t comment on whether something was being done any particular way. I didn’t try to explain the rules of he game. There were no actual rules. There was no way to win. She could love it because I left her alone, to make whatever she wanted. 

Ada at ceramics class

At his last soccer practice of the season, Julian opted to only spend half the session on the field. The rest of the time he wandered off to a creek to look for turtles, and stopped to pick clovers, and take a “nature pee.” He eventually circled back to the field to catch the last activity, where the coaches propped up a variety of goals around the exterior and the kids had to kick as many balls into the goals as they could in 3 minutes. His participation was lackluster, as it had been for most of the season, but then it was over, and they handed each child a medal and ice cream sandwiches for completing it. “I love soccer,” he said totally deadpan, looking up from the melting ice cream. “It’s just so, so fun.”  

Recommendations for the kids:

• Watch: If you’re a Disney+ subscriber, we recently went down a Disney classics rabbithole, and I’m happy to report that Pinocchio really holds up. Though I have critiques about the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, deeply-voiced fairy, my kids now affirm their own tall tales by asking, after making a questionable claim, “did my nose get longer?” which is at least a testament to the effectiveness of this fable.

• Play: I’ve probably recommended Perler Beads before, but it’s worth recommending again. AKA “those plastic beads you iron together.” Julian spent upwards of two hours yesterday methodically arranging these teeny plastic tubes into formations of rainbows and mushrooms.

• Gear: Julian’s been rocking this REI Tarn 12 backpack for the last year and it gets high marks for being toddler-sized, water-resistant, interior/exterior pouches, and outside water bottle holders. Perfect for school + travel.

• Screentime can be OK: Lots of people ask me about kids’ apps (because I made them for years) and the only one my kids want to play day in and day out is Sago Mini School. Organized by subject (forests, ice cream, playground, rainbows, transportation, etc) and led by play, if you have a 2-5 year old, this one is worthwhile.

Recommendations for the grown-ups:

• Listen: Krista Tippett talks to Jason Reynolds, the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature of the Library of Congress (who also co-authored Stamped from the Beginning and Stamped (for Kids) with Ibram X. Kendi). Reynolds exudes incredible compassion and respect for children, language, and argues for perpetual curiosity as the way to remain open in this interview and in his work.

• Also listen: Brené Brown talks with Samin Nosrat on her podcast, Unlocking Us. I loved hearing about her path to being a chef, not being what she seems on TV, her openness about depression, growing up as a smart-kid, and about navigating grief.

• Work it out, write it down: Carissa Potter Carlson is an artist who makes beautiful, structured journals that offer you activities to heal, process, and get your ideas and thoughts down. I’ve benefited greatly from the Make It Happen journal; there’s also the one about How to Heal Heartbreak, and All The Bad Stuff.

Lastly! A personal plug: I’ve spent many years thinking about how to get and give career support, and why there are so few places and people to navigate the ambiguous and challenging experience of working that consumes so much of our lives. After years of co-running a women’s career support group, I’m excited to make 1:1 coaching a more central part of my own work—to help people feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure of what’s next move through transitions, and lessen the gap between what you want work to be and what it is.

If you’re curious/interested, I’m offering a limited number of 30-minute ($75) trial sessions in July + August. If you’ve ever been coaching-curious, or find yourself in a career inflection point, or know someone who is, I hope you’ll consider signing up.

If you liked this this newsletter, please share it, forward it to a friend, and let me know. I’ll be off next week, but back the week after that.