Just Say No…to Extracurricular Timesucks (or at least trying to)

For the longest time, I looked forward to the time when my little girl could do some extracurricular activities.  But as my daughter gets closer and closer to turning three, I find myself caring less.  Before, I kept thinking of three as the gamechanger age; the age where my daughter could finally start taking a fun toddler class somewhere.  Would we sign her up for ballet?  Swimming?  Tumbling?  Do they have rock-climbing classes for kids that little?  She sure seems into that at the park…

But now, I’m starting to care less.

I am, in short, fatigued with modern parenting’s proposed goals.

Do I want my child to grow up well-rounded?  Yes.

Do I want her to get along well with others?  Yes, please.

Do I want her to explore a variety of interests?  For sure.

But I am already exhausted by the idea that these things should take precedence over the rest of our lives.  I take umbrage at the idea that I should clear the family calendar for months of consecutive Saturday mornings for soccer when she’s three and still thinks soccer balls and footballs are interchangeable and for throwing.  Another time, I put the kibosh on my daughter being a requested extra in a show because I didn’t want to spend the time (and also didn’t want to dip our toes in the world of showbiz, but that’s another matter).  My job requires me to be at work often on nights and weekends because of the nature of the work, and the idea of corralling a toddler on a set for ostensibly no reason on the one day off as a whole family we often have sounded nightmarish to me.

Ahead of me, I suddenly see a horizon full of extracurriculars that slowly wrap their tentacles around everyone in the family.  While I look forward to Girl Scouts someday, I balk at the idea of posting cookie sales to social media, or selling them at work, or standing outside a grocery store in February.  Brrr!  Loyalty to my daughter apparently has some limits. But brrrr, I say.  BRRRR!  (Also I’m pretty sure me selling cookies at work isn’t the point of the whole cookie thing…)

There’s got to be a way to balance the needs of the adults in a family and the desires of kids to have fun activities.

What if the goal for extracurriculars was to enjoy an activity for the sake of the activity, rather than mastering a skill that could land a scholarship one day, or lead to something bigger beyond the enjoyment of the thing itself?  What if she could learn great interpersonal skills at the park rather than a class we’re tied down to?  What if we let her explore her interests when she’s old enough to know what they are?

I don’t know what our family will ultimately do.  For now, I’ll probably still keep saying no to most things.  Maybe we’ll get her in a drop-in class that allows us more flexibility than a summer of blocked-off weekends.  Or maybe we’ll just find an activity we can do as a family, like working on exploring the bike trails in our state together.  All I know is this: I refuse to think of my time hoarding as selfish.  A family needs to have time as a family; one activity can’t eclipse the needs of every other person.  Watch, now my kid will be the one who has Olympic aspirations and I’ll have to eat my words.  Except I won’t have to, because I still retain the right to say one little word to things that don’t work for our family: No.