Unforeseen Cost (The Cost of Extra-Curriculars, Expanded version)

In the last year or so we have been led to cut back on some of our kids extra-curricular activities.  The pulling impetus that was unrefusable before isn’t pulling so hard as it did in our earlier days of parenting.  In our earlier years of parenting, we were more compelled to make sure our kids got to participate in everything... we couldn’t let them miss out on sports because that develops their understanding of working as a team.  We couldn’t miss out on say, drama, because that would develop their public speaking skills... we really should do marching band in the summer because it gives them a way to stay productive in the summer and is such an excellent opportunity that not all other homeschoolers have the luxury of and it is such an amazing program.  There was this higher intensity of wanting to make sure and give the kids all the opportunities not knowing if they would be spectacular in something, possibly one of those good enough to get a college scholarship because of their skills, what if that opportunity turned out to be the ingredient to a spectacular childhood?

But 25 years down the road, the inside urging has changed.  Experience has taught me that for all the running that we have done, more than likely, your child is not going to be the one to get the full ride athletic scholarship, turn into the world class musician, or be the next famous public speaker because you put everything else behind so that you could be in every club and every tournament.

There has been a price for all of those commitments.  My husband has been groaning for years that it’s too much for him... the running and all the games, performances and camps.  Out of one side of his mouth he has said that, “our children must be highly productive human beings,” and out of the other, “we can’t be doing all of these things, it’s killing me!”

Now, I’m looking at the clubs and activities with a different perspective.  Does it have eternal value as well as child development value?  I’m cutting back because I know doing all those things doesn’t bring what it promises and we have lived the cost of it.  The “cost” of doing these things is not considered in our culture.  There is a financial cost of the actual fees along with gas, lunches, ect.  Then there is a physical cost... how much energy is this going to take from our energy budget?  There is only so much energy to spend.  If we spend it here what is there not going to be energy to do otherwise?  Do you realize that there are only so many things that you can put your efforts into?  If your children are in soccer, will there be time and energy for church classes?  And then there is the free time cost... if your child is committed to a marching band parade on Saturdays in the summer, will there still be time to go on a picnic with the grandparents or run out for a spur of the moment one on one game of golf with Dad?  Or the value of waking up on a Saturday morning, looking out at the sunshine and deciding this would be a great day to go to the beach with friends...

I’ve just discovered another “cost” of our commitments as well.  There is a marriage cost.  Commitments cost the available time and energy we need to be spending on each other.  When we’re running to our own committee meetings or our kids gymnastics tournaments, “dividing and conquering,” we have just given up the time we might have had to go out to coffee together, sleep in, snuggle up and watch a movie.  We deplete the resources we might have had for each other.  We spend our available free time, flex dollars and energy running somewhere for the kids or to fulfill some other commitment of our own.  It’s another unnoticed trap of the 21st century.  Only now with 2 out of 6 kids remaining in our home, 25 years of experience and with this new revelation (lesser involvement with extra-curricular commitments) are my husband and I finding the time to nurture ourselves.  All these years we have been putting any needs we may have on the back burner.  There has been no time for rest or reading; time out for us.  We have had our full work week with a few extra-curricular evenings stacked in our after hours time during the week and then Saturday commitments for the kids and Sundays going to church and or own refueling must wait.. it never happens and the inner exhaustion grows.

Now, when a new “opportunity” comes around, a new club is being formed and it’s going to be awesome, amazing, wonderful, powerful... something inside me holds back, the memory of the “sting” of the cost holds me back.  Experience now guides me and reminds me of the value of a more relaxed schedule and the value that down time brings and consider if this commitment would be the most valuable decision for our whole family.  I look back in my grown children’s lives and see that those things along with a slimmer, spirit led selection of commitments, in the long run has the greatest eternal value.