Fatherhood anonymous; an open discussion on being a dad.

[alias_rice]

Had a funny 30 second talk with my oldest end of his junior year in high school. He was a very good high school baseball player and I asked him what do you want to do after high school with the sport ? He answered, "if i keep playing I want to be D1". I looked at him straight in the eye and told him, " I guess you're not playing after high school". His response was, " yeah, I know".

I breathed a sigh of relief knowing I didn't have to have him play at some POS JC somewhere trying to get a chance at another POS overpriced no name D3 team with no financial assistance.

Good call. Maybe in some sports it makes sense to go crazy your senior year to try and get a scholarship, but not in baseball. 12 scholarships spread out over 32 athletes. Even the kids good enough to get a scholarship, usually don't even get a half scholarship. It's why college baseball is almost all upper class white kids.

[carlh]

My 7yo is an august birthday and basically the youngest in his 2nd grade class. We have had some maturity challenges especially since he started k right after Covid but worked through them. He has tall genes so is still above average size for his class and has minimal interest in team sports so is not being held back there. My main worry was academic challenge being a year older since he is already working well above grade level. I am a summer birthday as well and happy I wasn’t held back since school was so easy and boring even at a “good” high school taking lots of ap classes.
That said every kid is different and there is not an obvious right answer.

[Timberridge]

Good call. Maybe in some sports it makes sense to go crazy your senior year to try and get a scholarship, but not in baseball. 12 scholarships spread out over 32 athletes. Even the kids good enough to get a scholarship, usually don't even get a half scholarship. It's why college baseball is almost all upper class white kids.

Do you understand the difference between a headcount sport and equivalency sport? As an equivalency sport it would be very unlikely that a player gets a full ride in baseball, so that's why they're all partial. It's not a skill or racial thing dude.

[Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabadoo]

Good call. Maybe in some sports it makes sense to go crazy your senior year to try and get a scholarship, but not in baseball. 12 scholarships spread out over 32 athletes. Even the kids good enough to get a scholarship, usually don't even get a half scholarship. It's why college baseball is almost all upper class white kids.

Part of the reason too is because most of the really good kids and the talent coming from abroad gets drafted right out high school into the farm system and never goes to college. I had a kid in my graduating class go to the Dodgers farm system right after graduation. Some of those kids wash out and go back to school but collegiate baseball is mostly kids not good enough to get drafted out of high school but with enough money to afford college, a demographic heavily weighted towards white kids in this country. At least that how it was when I was graduating HS.

[alias_rice]

Do you understand the difference between a headcount sport and equivalency sport? As an equivalency sport it would be very unlikely that a player gets a full ride in baseball, so that's why they're all partial. It's not a skill or racial thing dude.

I do indeed. The fact that it’s an equivalency sport means that almost all participants are paying at least a portion of their way. Which means it’s not an ideal sport to spend tons of money on during high school with the hopes of getting a scholarship. Which was my point. Lots of parents out there dropping 10’s of thousands of dollars in training and recruiting services for no good reason.

[lake_effect]

My twins were born on 8/29 and are two days before the cutoff for our school. This whole debate has been a big topic for the last year but especially now as we have to decide if they're going to move on to Kindergarten with their current, predominantly older cohort (where they are 5mo younger than the next youngest kid) or stay back for another year of PreK. We've been pretty firmly in the "hold" camp but their teachers feel they're academically ready to move on, so that adds to the dilemma. I'm not really concerned about their academic prep at this point, nor do I care about their athletic advantage, but I want them to be the most adjusted, emotionally ready and socially capable as they move forward later in their school career. I don't want to send them on, only to have one or both needing to repeat a year past PreK and I'm honestly pretty into having my kids around home for an "extra" year.

That said, I work at a school [where they attend] and see both sides of the argument and the resounding feedback from talking to dozens of parents who've been in this position, as well as teachers and support teachers is to have them wait. As our friend, a 2nd grade teacher, said: we never see kids and say "wow, he's really overly prepared for 2nd grade, but we regularly see kids who just weren't ready to move forward."

Our son was born 7/21, and we had the same dilemma. Academically was ready to move on but we were worried about how he'd be socially and already saw a few instances where he would do whatever the peer group did, even if he knew it wasn't right.

The biggest kicker was him being out of the house a year earlier. We stayed pretty close to home and still see our families a lot but who knows where the kids will end up. Selfishly, I want to spend as much time with them as I can.


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[Duffman]

Dude, for me, rotavirus was 10x as gnarly as the Vid. It seriously put me down for almost 2 weeks. Best of luck.

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Yeah, I'll take my chances w COVID these days vs Rota. Woof, that's a rough one.

[Adolf Allerbush]

My twins were born on 8/29 and are two days before the cutoff for our school. This whole debate has been a big topic for the last year but especially now as we have to decide if they're going to move on to Kindergarten with their current, predominantly older cohort (where they are 5mo younger than the next youngest kid) or stay back for another year of PreK. We've been pretty firmly in the "hold" camp but their teachers feel they're academically ready to move on, so that adds to the dilemma. I'm not really concerned about their academic prep at this point, nor do I care about their athletic advantage, but I want them to be the most adjusted, emotionally ready and socially capable as they move forward later in their school career. I don't want to send them on, only to have one or both needing to repeat a year past PreK and I'm honestly pretty into having my kids around home for an "extra" year.

That said, I work at a school [where they attend] and see both sides of the argument and the resounding feedback from talking to dozens of parents who've been in this position, as well as teachers and support teachers is to have them wait. As our friend, a 2nd grade teacher, said: we never see kids and say "wow, he's really overly prepared for 2nd grade, but we regularly see kids who just weren't ready to move forward."

This totally makes sense to me. I don't have a problem with folks redshirting their kids when they start kindergarten, meaning they decide at that point what trajectory their kid will take, either be old for their year or be on the young end. The thing I found odd/insane was holding a kid back for athletic reasons in 6th grade.

Some of the sports here are age based and some are academic year based. AAU hoops is age based and you can play up, etc. That said, the "select" school affiliated basketball teams typically are academic year based and you run into teams with kids that are 1-2 years older than what is typical for the academic year. There was a 13 year old 5th grader my son's team faced that was an absolute beast on the court. Tall at over 6 feet, fast, and absolutely impossible for the kids sometimes a foot shorter to deal with. Someone else said this, but I don't see how this pans out well for that specific kid in that specific example. There's also weirdness when it comes to baseball age...so it's age based but it revolves around a May 1 date. This means for a 12U team you could have a younger 7th graders on a predominantly 6th grade team. Those situations are odd to me, intentionally having your kid play back a year with kids an academic year younger, all knowing that come high school the kid will have to compete with their academic year cohort. That seems like a recipe for failure in that case. Meaning, you have an 8th grader play down on the 13u baseball team. The following year the same kid is trying out with his 9th grade classmates for the high school team(s). As someone else stated, extremely unlikely any of these kids are going to go pro at any sport so it seems a little nutty to me.

[SchralphMacchio]

My twins were born on 8/29 and are two days before the cutoff for our school. This whole debate has been a big topic for the last year but especially now as we have to decide if they're going to move on to Kindergarten with their current, predominantly older cohort (where they are 5mo younger than the next youngest kid) or stay back for another year of PreK. We've been pretty firmly in the "hold" camp but their teachers feel they're academically ready to move on, so that adds to the dilemma. I'm not really concerned about their academic prep at this point, nor do I care about their athletic advantage, but I want them to be the most adjusted, emotionally ready and socially capable as they move forward later in their school career. I don't want to send them on, only to have one or both needing to repeat a year past PreK and I'm honestly pretty into having my kids around home for an "extra" year.

So I started first grade when I was 5 (February birthday), started senior year at 16 and finished at 17. I didn’t get the whole story about my private preK/kindergarten experience but something about being ahead and testing through kindergarten level, I dunno - I just know that my dad recently told me that when I got to 3rd grade there was some controversy and a district meeting with my teachers and the district psychologist about whether to hold me back or not, and they decided to let me continue because I was consistently testing at top of my class.

I was always the smallest in my class, not just because I was the youngest but also because I’m Asian. I was *the worst* at sports until I was about 12 or so and started doing extracurricular martial arts that helped my coordination and physical development. I often associated more with the kids a grade behind, and of course I was always socially behind even through college; what’s funny is that I always attributed that to being a nerd and immigrant kid and not because I was a full year younger than everyone else! All that said, my biggest classroom behavioral issues came from not being academically challenged, I outright disrespected and talked back to high school teachers if I felt they didn't have a handle on the material. So while I maybe would have done much better socially if I was held back, I think I might have actually done worse academically from being bored and angry and getting into more trouble!

I feel like there really aren't right or wrong answers here, just more thinking about tradeoffs unique to each specific kid, and specific ways to support their needs and challenges. Once the kids are out of college (if going that route) all the life timelines kind of reset anyway!

[DLD in UT]

How’d the kid do last weekend?

Went well. First comp so learned how it goes and what kids are going to do. He got a little lost and off his line, but didn’t fall, and finished around same score as his buddies. Overall a awesome experience.

Tying this in with this other thread, he’s a bad ski bday (late Sept) and the genetics he got from me will keep him scrawny till HS. So just want skiing to be fun so it’s a lifelong pursuit and him to challenge himself. We’ll let his coaches coach and as parents we’ll just cheer and support!


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[californiagrown]

I do indeed. The fact that it’s an equivalency sport means that almost all participants are paying at least a portion of their way. Which means it’s not an ideal sport to spend tons of money on during high school with the hopes of getting a scholarship. Which was my point. Lots of parents out there dropping 10’s of thousands of dollars in training and recruiting services for no good reason.

My guy, its not about a monetary return on investment. To you it might be because you dont give two shits about baseball (or whatever sport), but i would be more than happy to drop tens of thousands on developing my kids skills in a sport WE BOTH love, and to give him lasting lifetime memories of all the BP, fielding and long toss sessions with dad, roadtrips and flights with friends to tournaments and the shenanigans involved. Though some parents may outwardly try to justify the expense because it should get recouped in scholarship money, deep down the real reason they are scrapping together the money is because they want to support their kids and want to see them develop their passions to their full potential. As do all good parents.

Think about it this way- how much do you think it all-in costs to develop and support a love of skiing for most of our kids (gear, lessons, lift tickets, gas money, trips, hotels, lodge food, teams, etc over a ~14 year period). Thats a REALLY high cost as well. But, I wont think twice about that cost either because its something WE (hopefully) BOTH love doing and makes for awesome memories and quality time.

[DLD in UT]

I feel like there really aren't right or wrong answers here, just more thinking about tradeoffs unique to each specific kid, and specific ways to support their needs and challenges. Once the kids are out of college (if going that route) all the life timelines kind of reset anyway!

School teacher checking in here with my 2 cents. I have taught MS/HS for 15 years. If you have any question about whether you kid is ready for Kindergarten, hold them out another year. Boys especially, mature slower than girls and the middle school years can be brutal. Helping them be a little more mature as they navigate the demands of MS is a huge benefit. And in terms of the actual thinking/reasoning that comes at each grade academically, there is no doubt that older brains can better handle topics. Bright younger children can memorize their way through, as brains mature they can better understand why and how vs. rote memorization.


I also have thought about it this way, if everyone is going to retire at 65 or 70 or whatever, would you rather your kid have an extra year of childhood or an extra year in the wage pool? Per the post above, my older is a late Sept bday so is old for his grade. He's in 5th now. I am already thinking that he will be one that we'll have take a year to work, do NOLS/Outward Bound btwn HS and college. I wish more people would take a year after HS. The number of people who don't know who they are and what they want out of the college experience and just go in by default and because our society says that is what you do is remarkable. I get that this is a privilege thing and not every family can, but letting your kid be a kid for longer seems like a gift.

[fatnslow]

So I started first grade when I was 5 (February birthday), started senior year at 16 and finished at 17. I didn’t get the whole story about my private preK/kindergarten experience but something about being ahead and testing through kindergarten level, I dunno - I just know that my dad recently told me that when I got to 3rd grade there was some controversy and a district meeting with my teachers and the district psychologist about whether to hold me back or not, and they decided to let me continue because I was consistently testing at top of my class.

I was always the smallest in my class, not just because I was the youngest but also because I’m Asian. I was *the worst* at sports until I was about 12 or so and started doing extracurricular martial arts that helped my coordination and physical development. I often associated more with the kids a grade behind, and of course I was always socially behind even through college; what’s funny is that I always attributed that to being a nerd and immigrant kid and not because I was a full year younger than everyone else! All that said, my biggest classroom behavioral issues came from not being academically challenged, I outright disrespected and talked back to high school teachers if I felt they didn't have a handle on the material. So while I maybe would have done much better socially if I was held back, I think I might have actually done worse academically from being bored and angry and getting into more trouble!

I feel like there really aren't right or wrong answers here, just more thinking about tradeoffs unique to each specific kid, and specific ways to support their needs and challenges. Once the kids are out of college (if going that route) all the life timelines kind of reset anyway!

Are you my sister's dopple ganger ? My dad thought starting school earliest possible was "getting ahead" so sent my sister to school a full year ahead (late Feb birthday) and society has been paying ever since. She was academically a star her whole life (mechanical engineering undergrad/MD) but never ever socially caught up or recovered. In true old world Asian mentality my dad never , ever valued emotional and social well being of kids. As far as that generation was concerned if you had food and shelter you were fine. Living through a war makes one think differently but that mentality didn't help the lives of me and my siblings as young immigrants in America.

[bfree]

I also have thought about it this way, if everyone is going to retire at 65 or 70 or whatever, would you rather your kid have an extra year of childhood or an extra year in the wage pool?

The rest of your post has some great points I can learn from, but I'm not sure about this one. I'm going to retire when my bank account tells me I can, not when the calendar does.

[alias_rice]

My guy, its not about a monetary return on investment. To you it might be because you dont give two shits about baseball (or whatever sport), but i would be more than happy to drop tens of thousands on developing my kids skills in a sport WE BOTH love, and to give him lasting lifetime memories of all the BP, fielding and long toss sessions with dad, roadtrips and flights with friends to tournaments and the shenanigans involved. Though some parents may outwardly try to justify the expense because it should get recouped in scholarship money, deep down the real reason they are scrapping together the money is because they want to support their kids and want to see them develop their passions to their full potential. As do all good parents.

Think about it this way- how much do you think it all-in costs to develop and support a love of skiing for most of our kids (gear, lessons, lift tickets, gas money, trips, hotels, lodge food, teams, etc over a ~14 year period). Thats a REALLY high cost as well. But, I wont think twice about that cost either because its something WE (hopefully) BOTH love doing and makes for awesome memories and quality time.

If those are the reasons behind it, not only do I agree with you, but it’s what I do. Both for skiing and baseball. I love both and so does my kid, and we spend a shit load of time and money on both. But I try to keep my kid and myself grounded in the fact that we do all this because it’s fun, and will teach good life lessons. Not because eventually he’s going to be getting a scholarship or go pro. But maybe I’m slightly jaded because I see so many assholes living vicariously through their kids.

[Duffman]

Chiming in here as we went through this decision process. Son is now 10, and has an ADHD diagnosis since mid 2nd grade ,has a late July birthday and was always on the smaller size , our local cutoff is Sept 1 so it was always on our mind. In Pre K he had trouble sitting or listening at circle time and while a happy kid who was friendly with everyone , it was clear he was not mature for his age. School recommended repeating Pre K ,with the thought that at that age there.wqs no shame or stigma and no other kids would really even notice. We did it despite the cost (pre k was private here) ,and it was definitely the right choice . Pandemic K year would have been tough either way but it was more manageable. . Still had some issues with the school environment through 2nd grade ,hence the ADHD diagnosis but no meds (apple doesn't far fall from the tree, in this era I would 100% have had the same, but back in the day if you did well on tests, nobody cared ). Did well grade wise in 2md and 3rd grade, but now in 4th grade a switch really flipped and he's crushing school, including the standardized assessments . I really think being a grade ahead would have been a big detriment for him. As far as sports , at this age they are all club here ,so he plays by birth year not school year anyway.

My 6 year old daughter is not only big for her age, but also has a late September bday so it was never an issue.. Since they are 4 years apart anyway, having their class years closer than their birth years isn't a potential issue at all, I can see how it could be for a closer age spread.

Tl;Dr
We kept our late summer bday boy back in Pre K and it's definitely been the right decision for us, but it's a huge YMMV depending on the kid and the situation

[funkendrenchman]

My twins were born on 8/29 and are two days before the cutoff for our school. This whole debate has been a big topic for the last year but especially now as we have to decide if they're going to move on to Kindergarten with their current, predominantly older cohort (where they are 5mo younger than the next youngest kid) or stay back for another year of PreK. We've been pretty firmly in the "hold" camp but their teachers feel they're academically ready to move on, so that adds to the dilemma. I'm not really concerned about their academic prep at this point, nor do I care about their athletic advantage, but I want them to be the most adjusted, emotionally ready and socially capable as they move forward later in their school career. I don't want to send them on, only to have one or both needing to repeat a year past PreK and I'm honestly pretty into having my kids around home for an "extra" year.

That said, I work at a school [where they attend] and see both sides of the argument and the resounding feedback from talking to dozens of parents who've been in this position, as well as teachers and support teachers is to have them wait. As our friend, a 2nd grade teacher, said: we never see kids and say "wow, he's really overly prepared for 2nd grade, but we regularly see kids who just weren't ready to move forward."

Would you even be thinking about it if they were born June 29? Being on the edge makes you question it even if most signs point to them being ready. Did you do a Kindergarten readiness checklist?

[SchralphMacchio]

Are you my sister's dopple ganger ? My dad thought starting school earliest possible was "getting ahead" so sent my sister to school a full year ahead (late Feb birthday) and society has been paying ever since. She was academically a star her whole life (mechanical engineering undergrad/MD) but never ever socially caught up or recovered. In true old world Asian mentality my dad never , ever valued emotional and social well being of kids. As far as that generation was concerned if you had food and shelter you were fine. Living through a war makes one think differently but that mentality didn't help the lives of me and my siblings as young immigrants in America.

Hot damn! My dad was a tank commander whose tank got blown up by rockets and was the only one in it to survive, I helped him take pieces of shrapnel that were still coming out of his back 20 years later when I was 14 or 15. Physics undergrad / ME grad school for me. Yeah … food, shelter, study hard until you pass out from exhaustion, bring home As, nothing else matters, don’t socialize with kids who are younger or not as smart as you, why do you want to do these extracurricular things? I came to terms with the way I was raised a long time ago … those experiences with war and loss were very tough on my dad. I also seriously burned out on academics when I got to college but pulled things back together, partly by focusing on my own interests and less on my dad’s or cultural expectations.

All that said I’m flying with my wife and kids back to visit Westminster for Tet in a couple of weeks to hang with their grandpa and get the full Little Saigon cultural experience!

[californiagrown]

If those are the reasons behind it, not only do I agree with you, but it’s what I do. Both for skiing and baseball. I love both and so does my kid, and we spend a shit load of time and money on both. But I try to keep my kid and myself grounded in the fact that we do all this because it’s fun, and will teach good life lessons. Not because eventually he’s going to be getting a scholarship or go pro. But maybe I’m slightly jaded because I see so many assholes living vicariously through their kids.

I mostly agree, but I think it's also important for teenagers to have the experience of seriously chasing a long term difficult goal (no matter the outcome). It's good to learn that it's not all fun and games - there are setbacks and failures and opportunities to overcome and succeed, but only if you want it bad enough. If you make it all too "light" then failures won't sting, and they may not learn how to deal with pressure and the big highs and lows.

The tough part, IMO, is pushing/supporting your kid to chase those dreams, but not pushing so hard that all the joy is sucked out and they are just always miserable/burned out. It sucks when it's blatantly obvious the parent is way more invested than the kid.

[Timberridge]

The tough part, IMO, is pushing/supporting your kid to chase those dreams, but not pushing so hard that all the joy is sucked out and they are just always miserable/burned out. It sucks when it's blatantly obvious the parent is way more invested than the kid.

No truer words were ever spoken.

I'll add one thing.

My son played a variety of sports so we never went all-in on one sport and if we had to do it over again I would chose the same path. I would discourage parents from falling into the rabbit hole of specialization too early. I was president of the baseball program in our town for 4 yrs, and I've been directly involved for 15 years. So I've seen a lot of kids go thru our progrram.

We have 3 levels of travel baseball (A,B,C) age 8 thru 15 and there are ~350 kids in our program. The #1 issue we always have is a parent of a 9 yr old having a fit about their kid being placed on a B team after tryouts, We have a local college baseball team run our tryouts so we think the tryouts are pretty fair and objective. After fielding these calls for 4 years, I decided to look back at the stats and compare the makeup of the 25 person HS Varsity rosters to the respective U9 travel teams from 7 yrs prior. Conclusion: the HS Varsity was made up of ~30% "A", 30% "B", and 30% "C" players from the U9 level. This varied somewhat over a 4 yr span but those % stayed roughly the same. Furthermore, about 15-20% of the Varsity team went on to play college baseball at various D1/D2/D3 schools, and again that group was a mix of A/B/C players at U9.

Back to the point californiagrown made about burnout. The #1 or #2 reason the A team was not represented more at HS Varsity was burnout. Some quit baseball for other sports, others just lost the passion. Conversely, the less skilled B and C players that continued on had a passion for the sport. If you find getting your kid to practice a particular sport is like pulling teeth, take a break from it. If they come back to it after a break, you know they love to do it and it will be much more of a pleasure for both you and them.

[alpinevibes]

Would you even be thinking about it if they were born June 29? Being on the edge makes you question it even if most signs point to them being ready. Did you do a Kindergarten readiness checklist?

I think we would, but certainly it wouldn't be quite as impactful of a thought process if they were farther from the cutoff and older. But we have friends with kids in the late Spring/early Summer range that are having the same considerations right now too. The flipside, to me (which further informs our decision), is that if they were born a week later, or 3-4 weeks later (at their due date) this probably wouldn't be much of a discussion at all. I'm a twin myself so this whole life/education planning process has a different layer of personal experience to weave in. Bit of a strange thing.

The reality is that I'm a unique situation as an employee here, such that paying for another year of PreK is not more expensive and has minimal cost/lifestyle difference from having them move on to Kindergarten. For the time being we plan to keep them at the fancy private school, but we'll see what the future holds.

School teacher checking in here with my 2 cents. I have taught MS/HS for 15 years. If you have any question about whether you kid is ready for Kindergarten, hold them out another year. Boys especially, mature slower than girls and the middle school years can be brutal. Helping them be a little more mature as they navigate the demands of MS is a huge benefit. And in terms of the actual thinking/reasoning that comes at each grade academically, there is no doubt that older brains can better handle topics. Bright younger children can memorize their way through, as brains mature they can better understand why and how vs. rote memorization.

Yeah, this is very much the resounding message we feel and are hearing from people. I don't doubt that my boys could "pull off" moving on to Kindergarten and adapt but I think they'd be best served, farther down the road, to wait and be more mature as they hit those stages later in their school career. I totally agree on the gap year too. College for me was a weird transition and I would have really been served well by a year off.

[skaredshtles]

Baseball? Fuck me. Glad we dodged *that* bullet with the 3 kids.

[Dromond]

Baseball? Fuck me. Glad we dodged *that* bullet with the 3 kids.

Am I extremely selfish for not wanting to devote tons of future time to support my (now tiny) kid in sports that I personally don’t enjoy?

[californiagrown]

Am I extremely selfish for not wanting to devote tons of future time to support my (now tiny) kid in sports that I personally don’t enjoy?

Seems like kids typically take up sports/activities that their parents enjoy (because they get introduced to them at an early age). Your kid will likely be into similar stuff that you and mom are into. That said, it would be pretty shitty to not support your kid's passion for something you have little interest in, because you have little interest in it.

[skaredshtles]

Am I extremely selfish for not wanting to devote tons of future time to support my (now tiny) kid in sports that I personally don’t enjoy?

Probably. But fuck... baseball?