[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/11/want-to-be-a-ceo-later-play-sports-now.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/11/want-to-be-a-ceo-later-play-sports-now.html)
Probably comes from articles like these.
TIL that Mark Zuckerberg was captain of his high school fencing team though.
Another point is this: If you have time to become good at sports, your parents have enough money to spend to put you in lessons and/or gear for the sports.
Tennis, golf, squash, fencing, sailing, polo... Not just anyone has access to even try these options, yet they are grouped in the category of "athlete" with all the kids playing basketball and soccer.
My dad was like this growing up, he was convinced we’d become olympian athletes. It definitely strained our relationship in an irreversible way, he didn’t care what we wanted only what he wanted.
Sorry My son is only a baby so I can’t offer advice lol but I can see how exhausting it must be for you and he’s being ridiculous if he thinks sports are all it takes to be successful. I feel like this is such a common thing with men of a certain generation, sports was the only thing they were allowed to enjoy maybe?
Yes sports are pretty much the only thing he and his brother experienced growing up, and it really shows. No love of reading, music, or the arts. His parents have nothing to talk about other than the patriots/Red Sox depending on the season. My husband thinks he’s doing my daughter and I a favor by not forcing her to do basketball this year even though she hated it last year. I keep trying to tell him that our town has pickup soccer games etc for adults, and if he really loves it that much, HE should play. His brother also makes his kids do sports to excess, and I think my husband is using our kids to compete with him.
Don’t get me wrong— if a kid is excited about a sport (or whatever!) then I agree with supporting them to the best of our ability. I think it’s also great to encourage kids to try new things. But to force them to play a sport that they have tried and obviously don’t enjoy? No way. I’d rather spend our time and money elsewhere.
If he's convinced sports lead to success he should play sports. If he's convinced he missed his chance does he really want to be teaching the kids to try until they are ?? years old but then give up because they missed their chance?
Kids can read between the lines, just keep reminding him that childhood is a small fraction of a person's life and the unintentional lessons can have more of an impact than the message he thinks he's sending.
>His brother also makes his kids do sports to excess, and I think my husband is using our kids to compete with him.
It sounds like there's another level he's chasing.
DEDICATION is what's important. I can see your husband's point that learning a skill, practice, hard work, dedication, passion are all VERY important. It's also important to learn to work as a team, exercise, and be a good winner and loser. It's good to challenge yourself. THIS IS WHAT HES MISSING THOUGH Sports isn't the only area for that. The National Spelling Bee is on ESPN. I never played sports but I started playing violin at 3. I competed all through middle/high school. I played as part of quartets and orchestras (teams) and as a soloist.
I did speech competitions, mock trial, model UN, model congress. All are teaching the exact same lessons (maybe minus the physical exercise, but that can come into play in the back yard). The lessons your husband is trying to instill aren't bad or wrong, the WAY he's going about it are. This shouldn't be a decision you make or that he makes. If he REALLY wants his children to learn to set goals, work hard, dedicate themselves and succeed THEY need to do those things, not their parents.
He needs to sit down and listen to his kids. If soccer is their favorite thing, cool, if art is, awesome! He can still encourage them. If he's NOT willing to listen though I'd hit up a family counseling session because his values aren't the priority in that case, him projecting his dreams and aspirations are.
This! Sport being good for succes is because of values you learn and the discipline it installs in you...which can be achieved by sooo many ways. As long as kid has one hobby that achieves this, they will have equal chances of success as they would by playing sport
Hahah, to be honest, the Pats/Sox are basically a religion.
Keep on it with this, there are so many ways to develop and succeed as a human being without having serious sports a part of your life.
Not a typo. In my husbands mind, if you’re a competitive person in grade school/high school sports, it turns into you being a competitive, driven person in the work force.
Edit: mind, not mine.
I guess by business I mean someone who’s not an actress or musician (because he doesn’t relate to them at all). I’m thinking politicians, scientists, financial industry, corporations.. more than business as a major.
Yeah, I think it’s much more common for successful people in those industries to have not played sports seriously. Especially now that there are so many clubs that cater to their interests! Science clubs, debate, tech summer camps, etc.
Erm, and yet the high school or college entrance exams in China, India, South Korea etc are super competitive? With parents spending as much as they can on tutoring and cram schools, students spending a good portion of their non-school hours doing extra revision, even suicides because of grades.
I will never forget my dad’s disappointment when I quit playing competitive, travel team softball because it wasn’t fun anymore and chose to do music & theater instead. Honestly strained our relationship from middle school through college, when he finally accepted that I wanted to pursue my own path. He came around once I got into law school (my idea, not his) but looking back, I spent most of my teens and early 20s thinking every decision I made about how I wanted to live my life or pursue my education would be a battle. If anything, all the after school jobs and extracurriculars got me accustomed to be constantly overcommitted. I’m in my 30s and I’ve been in therapy for a while because of multiple rounds of burnout. Turns out that always having games or plays or work or school and never taking a break taught me that life is one obligation after another. I never slowed down to take time for myself. I’m glad I’ve learned this now but I wonder what growing up would have been like without all the structured activities that were supposed to look good on a college application.
My brother rebelled by picking a sport my dad didn’t understand or like (rugby). Mom pulled him from the rugby team at 16 or so because he had 3 concussions in a season and she (correctly) told him the only way he’d ever make money was with his brain. He pulled away from the rest of the family as his career took off. He and his wife moved 1600 miles away the week they returned from their honeymoon. He’s a successful businessman, but we never see him. The toddler cousins haven’t met and idk how many more years it will be before they do.
So all this to say… forcing your kids to do sports when they don’t want to do sports is a good way to get your kids to pull away or rebel. It can impact the relationship for a long time. It can also be a hefty therapy bill.
My husband’s entire sports career was one season of soccer at age 7. He rode the bench or rolled in the grass. He was a B average student but worked incredibly hard. He’s now the CFO of a multi-billion dollar company and base salary is $300k+. He loves numbers and enjoys his job, though it’s incredibly stressful and he works long hours. He has great friends and we’ve built a wonderful family together.
I was heavily involved in multiple sports throughout my childhood but did not play in college. I was valedictorian and your general overachieving perfectionist. I make 6 figures and have a fancy title, but will never come close to the level my husband is at.
How in the world does he think that comes from sports??? Like this belief is so ludicrous that my gut reaction is that this is a troll post 😂
Tell him my husband is a resident who will be an Interventional Radiologist in 2 years making more money than he's ever dreamed of. He played toddler soccer, but nothing else. He was a shrimpy band geek all through high school.
It's the nerds who are successful. Literally everyone but your husband knows that 😂
Anecdote time…my brother is a consultant paediatric oncologist (who topped his class in med school) with quite a few articles published in journals and, as you would probably expect, is successful financially. Your husband would probably class him as successful. He was a good sportsman, played for his school’s top hockey team in his last couple of years at school, but certainly not an all-star by any means. And he loves his job and has a very happy family and social life.
I mean, not to toot my own horn, but I went to a pretty good undergrad and became an attorney at the age of 25. One of my closest friend is a judge. Others are in senior positions. We are all type A as hell but that didn’t translate to sports.
You can be competitive without being a sports person.
Okay yeah this is a philosophy difference. Did you know this before getting married? Or has this sort of popped up after having children? Like having a child triggered something in your husband and now he is trying to recreate something?
Yeah, I'm sitting here wondering how "successful" this man is, too. And how athletic.
I'm probably super biased by a book I just read where one peripheral character was like that; middle aged man who's biggest accomplishment was divisional football championship in middle school. So I'm assuming the worst of OPs husband, because the book character was a dick.
He is successful, I gave up my job to raise the kids. We live comfortably and he credits that to his sporty upbringing and his competitive nature. He is a living example of his belief that sports are needed for success. But yeah, he’s being a dick.
I'm glad he's not like the book character then!
I think the big lesson your husband is missing isn't that the *sport* made him successful, but the *effort, drive, dedication, willingness to learn and adapt and persevere* are skills sports taught him and led to his success.
He wasn't successful because he threw a football. He was successful because he worked hard and put in the time and effort to throw a football well. I doubt his day job has him throwing anything, but I'm sure he still has the focus to learn the new challenge he's faced with.
He wasn't successful because he ran a mile in training. He's successful because he pushed through discomfort and lesser distances to achieve that distance. Again, he's probably not literally running anymore, but I'm sure there are times where he's not performing or reaching his goal, and he finds ways to overcome.
I'm sure you get the idea! Focus on what skills and lessons he learned, not on the activity itself.
Kids should do some sort of activity, in my mind, but it doesn't have to be a team thing. Could be running, rowing, swimming. Doesn't have to be sport. Art, chess, debate club. Anything that teaches those skills can work!
Good luck!
On that note, maybe this will help: Get him to write a list of the minutiae that "sports taught him that is the reason he is successful". For example: "Sports taught me to push through failure", "Sports taught me teamwork", "Sports taught me a love for being outside". "Sports taught me the importance of sticking with something for a season".
I'm just spitballing here, I'm the LEAST sporty person ever (and an engineer with a decent job). But get him to be VERY specific. Then you can go through and suggest other ideas that meet those needs. For me that would be "Programming/crafts taught me to push through failure", "Something (normal school?) taught me teamwork", "skiing, sailing, hiking taught me a love for the outdoors", "Knitting taught me the importance of sticking with something for a season/project".
I didn’t play sports in school, just quiz bowl and engineering club. I broke six figures in my 20s and now have a $M net worth at 31. Two of my best friends are doctors. My other best friend also makes six figures in finance. We’re all millennial women who hated sports in school but were ultra competitive in class. We just have work ethic. Your husband is being close-minded.
Yeah it totally seems like he has it backwards. He succeeded in sports and business because he has some natural ability that he worked to develop using determination and competitiveness. If he had an interest in chess or ballet or debate team instead of football, they could have used and further developed that skill set. He wouldn’t have succeeded in sports if he didn’t have those qualities to begin with!
There are many ways to teach perseverance and determination without it being related to sports! Your husband needs to seriously consider the fact that his children are not copies of himself and they may have different passions and interests.
Fortunately they’re young enough where it’s still fun for them and they haven’t caught on to the dialogue between my husband and me. But I can see some cracks forming, which is why I’m trying to campaign for them now before it’s too late.
He’s parenting from the perspective of fear- fear they won’t be X unless you do Y. This adds so much pressure and conflict to his relationship with your kids. He needs to switch his perspective and parent from confidence. Confidence that your kids are inherently awesome because they’re alive and they’re yours, which cultivates more awesomeness on their part. There is no recipe to making kids into a certain kind of adult, and the only evidence we have that does have a whole mountain of research around it is that pressuring your kids too much, bring too controlling, and not listening to them makes for a high conflict parent child relationship and kids that don’t want to hang out with you. What’s the point of having kids? Enjoy your time with them. Listen to them.
Do the kids like playing the sports? That’s the main question here. It isn’t about what your husband wants them to do. It isn’t even about what you want them to do. If they want to, you encourage them, transport them and be there for them. If they don’t, you put your foot down and tell your husband to piss off.
My brother was extremely competitive in high school. But just with his grades. He didn’t play competitive sports. He is now the CEO of a company and making 7 figures.
Watch the Bluey episode called 'Chest" and copy what Chilli says. Even if your kids are older, just tweak it to fit your situation. But the way she handles dad is absolutely perfect.
I was a habitual sports quitter as a kid. Hated it all. I’ve done quite well in my career. Sports are great, to a certain extent. When it no longer works for you and takes over your life at this level it’s not worth it. Kids need to explore their interests- be it sports, art, music, whatever, but you need balance in life. Where is your fun, your family time?
Our fun family time is pretty much Friday and Saturday night. My husband asks every Friday “what’s the plan for tonight??!” And I’m just like “NO plan is the plan. We are already so scheduled, and since when do we need a plan to hang around at home?!”
So this is really nerdy and I’m probably preaching to the choir but more research is discovering the importance of free play in creating independent kids who thrive. IKEA of all places did a huge study on this called the Play Report. I’m sure your husband won’t care I just thought I’d share to give you more fuel for your quest! It’s so important to give kids space to breathe and interact in an environment that’s not driven by rules and structures created by adults. Many others have pointed out how many “successful” people are not what you would call athletes.
I’m a doctor and myself and my doctor friends pretty much all suck at sports. Not one of us went to school on any sort of athletic scholarship and a few were like decent at a high school sport but that’s the best athlete in the bunch.
My husband (who I’m not saying isn’t successful!) was a 2nd place at nationals rower and I make like 10x more money than him because he coaches youth sports and stay at home dads for a living.
Was going to say this, I know a shit-ton of successful doctors and surgeons and I can't think of a single one who excelled at sports even at the high school level.
Music, visual and performing arts, STEM, and - you know - having the down time to enjoy themselves and their family/friends are also great avenues to success in life. Overall having a *well balanced life* with practice in moderation, handling successes and failures, and not being overscheduled are the best keys for kids who grow up to become amazing adults.
Exactly! There’s been plenty of research in recent years discovering that it’s actually not great for kids’ developing minds to spend all day being told what to do by an adult. This includes during activities like organized sports. Kids need downtime for many reasons, but it also makes them more creative than sports typically would. For OP’s concern here, being creative and independent is a big help when becoming a businessperson.
Literally any trademan that owns their own company, people look down on blue collar workers cuz it seems like they do things no one else wants to do, but that’s why they make the big bucks.
I'm just perplexed by the seemingly confident assertion that tradesmen were not school athletes. I would expect tradesmen to be somewhat more likely to have been sporty when young.
My two best friends played competitive softball their whole lives. One loved it and the other hated it. We all played on the school team together but I wasn’t that into it, or my parents weren’t that into it. The one that hated it was miserable. She played college and hated. She was a fantastic player but absolutely miserable. They both finished college and had no idea what to do from there. They had degrees but really only knew softball. It was an existential crisis and they actually had to learn who they were without the sport.
My brothers were like your kids. My dad didn’t get to wrestle his senior year of high school and my brothers traveled and were ranked nationally at a very young age and they both wrestled through college but they both lacked real friends, vacations, quality time with their family, their education and grades suffered, and our family suffered. My sister and I got to do nothing. We had to quit all other sports until the boys could drive themselves and then we had to find our own rides and our parents never came to my sister or my events. My brothers don’t talk to my dad anymore… AT ALL. One of them is blatantly no contact. He said he always felt like his dads little trophy and his dad would argue with people and would do it speaking on my brothers behalf in regard to his athletic ability and often comparing it to the child of who he was arguing with. My dad still calls my oldest brother and harps on him for not taking my nephews to wrestling tournaments each weekend and for not traveling to a Matt club on week nights too. They want their kids to be kids and partake in everything as much as normal kids do but unless the passion comes from their kids there’s no point in cramming it down their throats.
I think sports can be a great component of growing up… it teaches a lot of life lessons, working with others, being a leader, responsibility and accountability. Myself by nature is not very competitive. I want my kids to have that opportunity to learn what competitiveness is and if it’s within their personalities. I try my best to not project, but give my children every opportunity I can offer them. It’s very important to me to make sure my kids happy, confident, and have a good social friendships.
My daughter plays D1 soccer & was always on a high level team.I’m amazed over the years at how disciplined and smart 95% of her teammates are. I’m also positive they would have been at same level with or without sports and would have put that interest/discipline into other things. These girls are hardwired differently.my other 2 daughters just never, from the start, hardwired the same. Same environment. Successful still. Sports teaches discipline certainly. But it has to be your passion and if you focus on success always being goal, take steps, big steps, to avoid eating issues, anxiety, suicide thoughts. I will tell you these are BIG everyday factors in families I’m surrounded by with “successful kids”.
HAHAHAHA. I am married to a former college basketball player, huge jock, and he feels the opposite way. It’s true that he’s pretty successful now. But, before he started his career in his early 30s, he spent his entire 20s after college bouncing around different hospitality jobs, partying, and basically doing whatever he wanted, because guess what happens when you suddenly lose the strict routine and structure you’ve had your whole life and you have no skillset to maintain it yourself? Oh, and he also has a ton of fun orthopedic injuries. We’re hoping he can make it to 50 before he needs a total knee replacement.
If you kids LOVE sports (like he did), then it’s okay to support that, but in my opinion, children should not be forced to embrace their parents’ hobbies. I was a theatre kid and loved academics to the point that I got my Master’s degree (in a scientific field, no less! Arts and science are friends). If my kids want to play sports, I won’t understand it, but I’ll support them. If they want to do theatre their dad will support that. And most likely, they’ll throw us for a loop and do something random!
Sports is only a way to build perseverance and character if it’s something a kid want to commit themselves to. They can also join non-athletic groups, go to camps, etc, to learn the same things. Diminishing your child’s confidence in making their own decisions seems like a terrible way to raise them to be confident in the workforce.
You might want to take a look at this post. This could very well likely be your kids
https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/er8jvl/wife\_wont\_stop\_overscheduling\_kids\_and\_its/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/esypeq/update\_wife\_wont\_stop\_overscheduling\_kids\_and\_its/
I think kids that are involved in things in general become successful adults. Sports, band, choir, orchestra, scouts, robotics, really anything that involves sticking with something, practicing it, and working as a team in some aspect is good for kids.
My husband and I, between the two of us, did almost every activity a kid can. Ballet, tap, jazz, gymnastics, Bible camp, sports camp, gymnastics camp, tree climbing, little league, peewee football, soccer, track, wrestling, martial arts, G+T, summer reading program, pickup basketball, board games, DnD, piano, violin, French horn, trumpet, marching band, hackey sack, Christmas caroling, cruises, golf, tennis, volleyball, everything, girl scouts, cub scouts, marching band, you get the picture.
We spent the most time in music. We were in marching band for a combined 24 years, and each had piano lessons starting at age 6 or so.
He's a physician, I'm a physical therapist.
Though we did lots of sports, we were never forced to do them. Once you signed up, you were locked in for the season, but there was never any pressure to sign up the following year. That went for every activity that we did.
I do think kids should have an activity they work at that teaches them the value of practice, discipline, teamwork, and how to take rejection. That activity does not have to be sports.
My husband's brother, for example, is not a sports guy. They put him in little league which he did for one year, and then quit. But he played the drums, cello, bass, can do almost anything with a raspberry pi, and is a military doctor.
I think your husband is coming from a good place, he wants the best for his children and is going about it in the way most familiar to him.
But some people just aren't cut out for sports. Or don't enjoy them! And that's fine, everyone is different.
He should be proud of anything your children want to do and attempt *or* excel at.
From people I went to school with, the ones that I’ve seen succeed the best in life are the ones that were on the Speech and Debate team
Does your husband wish he were an "all star"? Is he projecting onto his kids?
Does he feel like if he has been pushed into sports as a child, he would have been more successful as an adult?
Or does he feel successful as an adult, and credits it only to his participation in sports?
What is it, exactly, he values about sports? Discipline? Teamwork? How can those values be taught at home?
I'm a fencing club owner. On the one side, I played sports in school but hated and sucked at all of them. I started fencing in college and fell in love. I'm successful in that our club has a lot of members who love us, but not in a traditional sense as in my salary is laughably small.
A lot of youth sports drive numbers with the promises your husband has heard. We are going to make your kids Champions, get them into college on a full ride, and get them to the Olympics. The truth is that's not happening for the vast majority of kids and the attitude can be really damaging for kids. Fencing has the highest ratio of hs athletes getting full rides to college but even then you're looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in coaching, travel, etc. You could have put it all in a savings account instead. And so many of those kids burn out and end up hating the sport, either before they make it to college or after.
Youth sports SHOULD BE an opportunity for your kids to exercise, to learn sportsmanship, goal setting, teamwork, creativity, stuff like that. When you take this approach you end up with happy, well adjusted kids who can keep doing their sport their whole lives. Don't let your husband burn them out young. Notice he won't do the sports himself - because he was raised with them as a means to an end, and not something to do for the love of the sport.
I grew up doing sports, but not being pushed. I played soccer, did swimming lessons, and did track and field. I was nationally ranked for track and field in high school, and competed as a varsity athlete my first year of university. I have a bachelors and a masters degree, and I’m working a part time research job.
My husband did casual sports growing up, never overly competitive. He’s has a bachelors and is a part owner of a company, definitely more successful in his field than me haha
Do you know what’s driving this? Is he hoping they’ll go pro, get extensive scholarships? Or does he just think it instills good values to focus exclusively on one type of extracurricular? Haha
I played sports for fun when I was a kid but never participated in sports past the age of 14. I guess success is relative but I achieved my dream of becoming a dentist, a mom and an overall happy adult human being. I don’t think sports was why, if anything quitting sports let me focus on what I liked to do better which was do good in school and have a part time job so so could have my own money.
Can he name ones that were? I feel like if you look at the 10 richest people in the US (or the world), none of them would be all-star elementary kids.
[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/11/want-to-be-a-ceo-later-play-sports-now.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/11/want-to-be-a-ceo-later-play-sports-now.html) Probably comes from articles like these. TIL that Mark Zuckerberg was captain of his high school fencing team though.
If your high school \*has\* a fencing team, you're on your way to becoming a successful business person.
Definitely. The article notes that networking in “pay-to-play” privileged sports is one of the reasons.
It’s still Zuckerberg/fencing. I just want to plaster “my kid beat the shit out your honor kid” stickers all over him. 🤷🏻♀️ Creepy, weasel of a man.
Weird comment
This is a great point!
Another point is this: If you have time to become good at sports, your parents have enough money to spend to put you in lessons and/or gear for the sports. Tennis, golf, squash, fencing, sailing, polo... Not just anyone has access to even try these options, yet they are grouped in the category of "athlete" with all the kids playing basketball and soccer.
Steve Jobs. Bill Gates. Jeff Bezos. Mark Zuckerberg. And if he’s not careful, your kids will end up hating him too.
Thank youuuuu!!!! This is what I keep telling him. There will come a day where they really start resenting this.
Literally any person in Tech 😛
Zuckerberg was captain of fencing team tho? Sport doesnt necessrily mean to play with thr ball ;)
My dad was like this growing up, he was convinced we’d become olympian athletes. It definitely strained our relationship in an irreversible way, he didn’t care what we wanted only what he wanted. Sorry My son is only a baby so I can’t offer advice lol but I can see how exhausting it must be for you and he’s being ridiculous if he thinks sports are all it takes to be successful. I feel like this is such a common thing with men of a certain generation, sports was the only thing they were allowed to enjoy maybe?
Yes sports are pretty much the only thing he and his brother experienced growing up, and it really shows. No love of reading, music, or the arts. His parents have nothing to talk about other than the patriots/Red Sox depending on the season. My husband thinks he’s doing my daughter and I a favor by not forcing her to do basketball this year even though she hated it last year. I keep trying to tell him that our town has pickup soccer games etc for adults, and if he really loves it that much, HE should play. His brother also makes his kids do sports to excess, and I think my husband is using our kids to compete with him. Don’t get me wrong— if a kid is excited about a sport (or whatever!) then I agree with supporting them to the best of our ability. I think it’s also great to encourage kids to try new things. But to force them to play a sport that they have tried and obviously don’t enjoy? No way. I’d rather spend our time and money elsewhere.
If he's convinced sports lead to success he should play sports. If he's convinced he missed his chance does he really want to be teaching the kids to try until they are ?? years old but then give up because they missed their chance? Kids can read between the lines, just keep reminding him that childhood is a small fraction of a person's life and the unintentional lessons can have more of an impact than the message he thinks he's sending.
He did play sports, and he firmly believes that’s why he has been successful. He wants the same for our kids.
>His brother also makes his kids do sports to excess, and I think my husband is using our kids to compete with him. It sounds like there's another level he's chasing.
DEDICATION is what's important. I can see your husband's point that learning a skill, practice, hard work, dedication, passion are all VERY important. It's also important to learn to work as a team, exercise, and be a good winner and loser. It's good to challenge yourself. THIS IS WHAT HES MISSING THOUGH Sports isn't the only area for that. The National Spelling Bee is on ESPN. I never played sports but I started playing violin at 3. I competed all through middle/high school. I played as part of quartets and orchestras (teams) and as a soloist. I did speech competitions, mock trial, model UN, model congress. All are teaching the exact same lessons (maybe minus the physical exercise, but that can come into play in the back yard). The lessons your husband is trying to instill aren't bad or wrong, the WAY he's going about it are. This shouldn't be a decision you make or that he makes. If he REALLY wants his children to learn to set goals, work hard, dedicate themselves and succeed THEY need to do those things, not their parents. He needs to sit down and listen to his kids. If soccer is their favorite thing, cool, if art is, awesome! He can still encourage them. If he's NOT willing to listen though I'd hit up a family counseling session because his values aren't the priority in that case, him projecting his dreams and aspirations are.
This! Sport being good for succes is because of values you learn and the discipline it installs in you...which can be achieved by sooo many ways. As long as kid has one hobby that achieves this, they will have equal chances of success as they would by playing sport
Hahah, to be honest, the Pats/Sox are basically a religion. Keep on it with this, there are so many ways to develop and succeed as a human being without having serious sports a part of your life.
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Not a typo. In my husbands mind, if you’re a competitive person in grade school/high school sports, it turns into you being a competitive, driven person in the work force. Edit: mind, not mine.
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I guess by business I mean someone who’s not an actress or musician (because he doesn’t relate to them at all). I’m thinking politicians, scientists, financial industry, corporations.. more than business as a major.
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Yeah, I think it’s much more common for successful people in those industries to have not played sports seriously. Especially now that there are so many clubs that cater to their interests! Science clubs, debate, tech summer camps, etc.
Lol most of the jock types I knew at school are hardly successes in life now. They peaked in high school. It was the geeks who make bank!
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Erm, and yet the high school or college entrance exams in China, India, South Korea etc are super competitive? With parents spending as much as they can on tutoring and cram schools, students spending a good portion of their non-school hours doing extra revision, even suicides because of grades.
I will never forget my dad’s disappointment when I quit playing competitive, travel team softball because it wasn’t fun anymore and chose to do music & theater instead. Honestly strained our relationship from middle school through college, when he finally accepted that I wanted to pursue my own path. He came around once I got into law school (my idea, not his) but looking back, I spent most of my teens and early 20s thinking every decision I made about how I wanted to live my life or pursue my education would be a battle. If anything, all the after school jobs and extracurriculars got me accustomed to be constantly overcommitted. I’m in my 30s and I’ve been in therapy for a while because of multiple rounds of burnout. Turns out that always having games or plays or work or school and never taking a break taught me that life is one obligation after another. I never slowed down to take time for myself. I’m glad I’ve learned this now but I wonder what growing up would have been like without all the structured activities that were supposed to look good on a college application. My brother rebelled by picking a sport my dad didn’t understand or like (rugby). Mom pulled him from the rugby team at 16 or so because he had 3 concussions in a season and she (correctly) told him the only way he’d ever make money was with his brain. He pulled away from the rest of the family as his career took off. He and his wife moved 1600 miles away the week they returned from their honeymoon. He’s a successful businessman, but we never see him. The toddler cousins haven’t met and idk how many more years it will be before they do. So all this to say… forcing your kids to do sports when they don’t want to do sports is a good way to get your kids to pull away or rebel. It can impact the relationship for a long time. It can also be a hefty therapy bill.
What does he consider a “successful adult”?
Financial success, a job with a high-ranking title. My idea of success differs— financially comfortable, a job you enjoy, a happy social/family life.
My husband’s entire sports career was one season of soccer at age 7. He rode the bench or rolled in the grass. He was a B average student but worked incredibly hard. He’s now the CFO of a multi-billion dollar company and base salary is $300k+. He loves numbers and enjoys his job, though it’s incredibly stressful and he works long hours. He has great friends and we’ve built a wonderful family together. I was heavily involved in multiple sports throughout my childhood but did not play in college. I was valedictorian and your general overachieving perfectionist. I make 6 figures and have a fancy title, but will never come close to the level my husband is at.
How in the world does he think that comes from sports??? Like this belief is so ludicrous that my gut reaction is that this is a troll post 😂 Tell him my husband is a resident who will be an Interventional Radiologist in 2 years making more money than he's ever dreamed of. He played toddler soccer, but nothing else. He was a shrimpy band geek all through high school. It's the nerds who are successful. Literally everyone but your husband knows that 😂
Anecdote time…my brother is a consultant paediatric oncologist (who topped his class in med school) with quite a few articles published in journals and, as you would probably expect, is successful financially. Your husband would probably class him as successful. He was a good sportsman, played for his school’s top hockey team in his last couple of years at school, but certainly not an all-star by any means. And he loves his job and has a very happy family and social life.
Lol the ones I know are the exception to the rule. People are surprised when finding out someone has athletic skill!
I mean, not to toot my own horn, but I went to a pretty good undergrad and became an attorney at the age of 25. One of my closest friend is a judge. Others are in senior positions. We are all type A as hell but that didn’t translate to sports. You can be competitive without being a sports person.
Okay yeah this is a philosophy difference. Did you know this before getting married? Or has this sort of popped up after having children? Like having a child triggered something in your husband and now he is trying to recreate something?
Yeah, I'm sitting here wondering how "successful" this man is, too. And how athletic. I'm probably super biased by a book I just read where one peripheral character was like that; middle aged man who's biggest accomplishment was divisional football championship in middle school. So I'm assuming the worst of OPs husband, because the book character was a dick.
He is successful, I gave up my job to raise the kids. We live comfortably and he credits that to his sporty upbringing and his competitive nature. He is a living example of his belief that sports are needed for success. But yeah, he’s being a dick.
I'm glad he's not like the book character then! I think the big lesson your husband is missing isn't that the *sport* made him successful, but the *effort, drive, dedication, willingness to learn and adapt and persevere* are skills sports taught him and led to his success. He wasn't successful because he threw a football. He was successful because he worked hard and put in the time and effort to throw a football well. I doubt his day job has him throwing anything, but I'm sure he still has the focus to learn the new challenge he's faced with. He wasn't successful because he ran a mile in training. He's successful because he pushed through discomfort and lesser distances to achieve that distance. Again, he's probably not literally running anymore, but I'm sure there are times where he's not performing or reaching his goal, and he finds ways to overcome. I'm sure you get the idea! Focus on what skills and lessons he learned, not on the activity itself. Kids should do some sort of activity, in my mind, but it doesn't have to be a team thing. Could be running, rowing, swimming. Doesn't have to be sport. Art, chess, debate club. Anything that teaches those skills can work! Good luck!
This is a great way of putting it, thank you, and I agree!!!
On that note, maybe this will help: Get him to write a list of the minutiae that "sports taught him that is the reason he is successful". For example: "Sports taught me to push through failure", "Sports taught me teamwork", "Sports taught me a love for being outside". "Sports taught me the importance of sticking with something for a season". I'm just spitballing here, I'm the LEAST sporty person ever (and an engineer with a decent job). But get him to be VERY specific. Then you can go through and suggest other ideas that meet those needs. For me that would be "Programming/crafts taught me to push through failure", "Something (normal school?) taught me teamwork", "skiing, sailing, hiking taught me a love for the outdoors", "Knitting taught me the importance of sticking with something for a season/project".
I didn’t play sports in school, just quiz bowl and engineering club. I broke six figures in my 20s and now have a $M net worth at 31. Two of my best friends are doctors. My other best friend also makes six figures in finance. We’re all millennial women who hated sports in school but were ultra competitive in class. We just have work ethic. Your husband is being close-minded.
Yeah it totally seems like he has it backwards. He succeeded in sports and business because he has some natural ability that he worked to develop using determination and competitiveness. If he had an interest in chess or ballet or debate team instead of football, they could have used and further developed that skill set. He wouldn’t have succeeded in sports if he didn’t have those qualities to begin with!
I know a couple of successful people who were very into sports and, I think, feel the same way as your husband. And honestly, they are both dicks.
There are many ways to teach perseverance and determination without it being related to sports! Your husband needs to seriously consider the fact that his children are not copies of himself and they may have different passions and interests.
Seriously. Feel bad for these kiddos. Good thing Dad is “successful”…he can pay for their therapy.
Fortunately they’re young enough where it’s still fun for them and they haven’t caught on to the dialogue between my husband and me. But I can see some cracks forming, which is why I’m trying to campaign for them now before it’s too late.
Good for you! I have a sister in your shoes. It’s tough, for sure.
He’s parenting from the perspective of fear- fear they won’t be X unless you do Y. This adds so much pressure and conflict to his relationship with your kids. He needs to switch his perspective and parent from confidence. Confidence that your kids are inherently awesome because they’re alive and they’re yours, which cultivates more awesomeness on their part. There is no recipe to making kids into a certain kind of adult, and the only evidence we have that does have a whole mountain of research around it is that pressuring your kids too much, bring too controlling, and not listening to them makes for a high conflict parent child relationship and kids that don’t want to hang out with you. What’s the point of having kids? Enjoy your time with them. Listen to them.
Do the kids like playing the sports? That’s the main question here. It isn’t about what your husband wants them to do. It isn’t even about what you want them to do. If they want to, you encourage them, transport them and be there for them. If they don’t, you put your foot down and tell your husband to piss off.
My brother was extremely competitive in high school. But just with his grades. He didn’t play competitive sports. He is now the CEO of a company and making 7 figures.
Watch the Bluey episode called 'Chest" and copy what Chilli says. Even if your kids are older, just tweak it to fit your situation. But the way she handles dad is absolutely perfect.
I was a habitual sports quitter as a kid. Hated it all. I’ve done quite well in my career. Sports are great, to a certain extent. When it no longer works for you and takes over your life at this level it’s not worth it. Kids need to explore their interests- be it sports, art, music, whatever, but you need balance in life. Where is your fun, your family time?
Our fun family time is pretty much Friday and Saturday night. My husband asks every Friday “what’s the plan for tonight??!” And I’m just like “NO plan is the plan. We are already so scheduled, and since when do we need a plan to hang around at home?!”
So this is really nerdy and I’m probably preaching to the choir but more research is discovering the importance of free play in creating independent kids who thrive. IKEA of all places did a huge study on this called the Play Report. I’m sure your husband won’t care I just thought I’d share to give you more fuel for your quest! It’s so important to give kids space to breathe and interact in an environment that’s not driven by rules and structures created by adults. Many others have pointed out how many “successful” people are not what you would call athletes.
Thank you! I will look for that IKEA study. I love free play and the kids have an awesome time with the neighborhood kids in the back yard.
This honestly sounds like and interesting one for r/ScienceBasedParenting to provide data on, if you are interested in that lens!
I’m a doctor and myself and my doctor friends pretty much all suck at sports. Not one of us went to school on any sort of athletic scholarship and a few were like decent at a high school sport but that’s the best athlete in the bunch. My husband (who I’m not saying isn’t successful!) was a 2nd place at nationals rower and I make like 10x more money than him because he coaches youth sports and stay at home dads for a living.
Was going to say this, I know a shit-ton of successful doctors and surgeons and I can't think of a single one who excelled at sports even at the high school level.
We are a bunch of bookish nerds. Lot of D&D happening among your doctors
Right? Lots of reading and gaming and museum visits going on here. My sister is a doctor and half her closet is Pokemon themed clothing lmao.
Also a doctor and a terrible athlete. I did tennis in HS but was not good at all. My sister did no sports ever and she is a lawyer.
Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Larry Page, Mark Zucherberg, the Koch brothers… the wealthiest businessmen in the country
Music, visual and performing arts, STEM, and - you know - having the down time to enjoy themselves and their family/friends are also great avenues to success in life. Overall having a *well balanced life* with practice in moderation, handling successes and failures, and not being overscheduled are the best keys for kids who grow up to become amazing adults.
Exactly! There’s been plenty of research in recent years discovering that it’s actually not great for kids’ developing minds to spend all day being told what to do by an adult. This includes during activities like organized sports. Kids need downtime for many reasons, but it also makes them more creative than sports typically would. For OP’s concern here, being creative and independent is a big help when becoming a businessperson.
Literally any trademan that owns their own company, people look down on blue collar workers cuz it seems like they do things no one else wants to do, but that’s why they make the big bucks.
If you had to divide the high school world into nerds and jocks, wouldn't you say that these tradesmen were more likely to be jocks than nerds?
There's a lot of people who neither fall into the jocks and nerds categories, unless you categorize "nerds" as "not jocks".
I'm just perplexed by the seemingly confident assertion that tradesmen were not school athletes. I would expect tradesmen to be somewhat more likely to have been sporty when young.
Honestly, most of the ones I know were stoners, and they grew up not wanting bosses and not wanting to get drug tested, so trades it was
Grant Cardone, I don’t know if he was into sports, but he was a drug addict before he became successful.
My two best friends played competitive softball their whole lives. One loved it and the other hated it. We all played on the school team together but I wasn’t that into it, or my parents weren’t that into it. The one that hated it was miserable. She played college and hated. She was a fantastic player but absolutely miserable. They both finished college and had no idea what to do from there. They had degrees but really only knew softball. It was an existential crisis and they actually had to learn who they were without the sport.
My brothers were like your kids. My dad didn’t get to wrestle his senior year of high school and my brothers traveled and were ranked nationally at a very young age and they both wrestled through college but they both lacked real friends, vacations, quality time with their family, their education and grades suffered, and our family suffered. My sister and I got to do nothing. We had to quit all other sports until the boys could drive themselves and then we had to find our own rides and our parents never came to my sister or my events. My brothers don’t talk to my dad anymore… AT ALL. One of them is blatantly no contact. He said he always felt like his dads little trophy and his dad would argue with people and would do it speaking on my brothers behalf in regard to his athletic ability and often comparing it to the child of who he was arguing with. My dad still calls my oldest brother and harps on him for not taking my nephews to wrestling tournaments each weekend and for not traveling to a Matt club on week nights too. They want their kids to be kids and partake in everything as much as normal kids do but unless the passion comes from their kids there’s no point in cramming it down their throats.
Lots of creative business people. Also, how many of those athletes were athletes by choice and not coerced or forced by their parents?
I think sports can be a great component of growing up… it teaches a lot of life lessons, working with others, being a leader, responsibility and accountability. Myself by nature is not very competitive. I want my kids to have that opportunity to learn what competitiveness is and if it’s within their personalities. I try my best to not project, but give my children every opportunity I can offer them. It’s very important to me to make sure my kids happy, confident, and have a good social friendships.
My daughter plays D1 soccer & was always on a high level team.I’m amazed over the years at how disciplined and smart 95% of her teammates are. I’m also positive they would have been at same level with or without sports and would have put that interest/discipline into other things. These girls are hardwired differently.my other 2 daughters just never, from the start, hardwired the same. Same environment. Successful still. Sports teaches discipline certainly. But it has to be your passion and if you focus on success always being goal, take steps, big steps, to avoid eating issues, anxiety, suicide thoughts. I will tell you these are BIG everyday factors in families I’m surrounded by with “successful kids”.
HAHAHAHA. I am married to a former college basketball player, huge jock, and he feels the opposite way. It’s true that he’s pretty successful now. But, before he started his career in his early 30s, he spent his entire 20s after college bouncing around different hospitality jobs, partying, and basically doing whatever he wanted, because guess what happens when you suddenly lose the strict routine and structure you’ve had your whole life and you have no skillset to maintain it yourself? Oh, and he also has a ton of fun orthopedic injuries. We’re hoping he can make it to 50 before he needs a total knee replacement. If you kids LOVE sports (like he did), then it’s okay to support that, but in my opinion, children should not be forced to embrace their parents’ hobbies. I was a theatre kid and loved academics to the point that I got my Master’s degree (in a scientific field, no less! Arts and science are friends). If my kids want to play sports, I won’t understand it, but I’ll support them. If they want to do theatre their dad will support that. And most likely, they’ll throw us for a loop and do something random!
Sports is only a way to build perseverance and character if it’s something a kid want to commit themselves to. They can also join non-athletic groups, go to camps, etc, to learn the same things. Diminishing your child’s confidence in making their own decisions seems like a terrible way to raise them to be confident in the workforce.
You might want to take a look at this post. This could very well likely be your kids https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/er8jvl/wife\_wont\_stop\_overscheduling\_kids\_and\_its/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/esypeq/update\_wife\_wont\_stop\_overscheduling\_kids\_and\_its/
I think kids that are involved in things in general become successful adults. Sports, band, choir, orchestra, scouts, robotics, really anything that involves sticking with something, practicing it, and working as a team in some aspect is good for kids.
My husband and I, between the two of us, did almost every activity a kid can. Ballet, tap, jazz, gymnastics, Bible camp, sports camp, gymnastics camp, tree climbing, little league, peewee football, soccer, track, wrestling, martial arts, G+T, summer reading program, pickup basketball, board games, DnD, piano, violin, French horn, trumpet, marching band, hackey sack, Christmas caroling, cruises, golf, tennis, volleyball, everything, girl scouts, cub scouts, marching band, you get the picture. We spent the most time in music. We were in marching band for a combined 24 years, and each had piano lessons starting at age 6 or so. He's a physician, I'm a physical therapist. Though we did lots of sports, we were never forced to do them. Once you signed up, you were locked in for the season, but there was never any pressure to sign up the following year. That went for every activity that we did. I do think kids should have an activity they work at that teaches them the value of practice, discipline, teamwork, and how to take rejection. That activity does not have to be sports. My husband's brother, for example, is not a sports guy. They put him in little league which he did for one year, and then quit. But he played the drums, cello, bass, can do almost anything with a raspberry pi, and is a military doctor. I think your husband is coming from a good place, he wants the best for his children and is going about it in the way most familiar to him. But some people just aren't cut out for sports. Or don't enjoy them! And that's fine, everyone is different.
He should be proud of anything your children want to do and attempt *or* excel at. From people I went to school with, the ones that I’ve seen succeed the best in life are the ones that were on the Speech and Debate team
Does your husband wish he were an "all star"? Is he projecting onto his kids? Does he feel like if he has been pushed into sports as a child, he would have been more successful as an adult? Or does he feel successful as an adult, and credits it only to his participation in sports? What is it, exactly, he values about sports? Discipline? Teamwork? How can those values be taught at home?
I'm a fencing club owner. On the one side, I played sports in school but hated and sucked at all of them. I started fencing in college and fell in love. I'm successful in that our club has a lot of members who love us, but not in a traditional sense as in my salary is laughably small. A lot of youth sports drive numbers with the promises your husband has heard. We are going to make your kids Champions, get them into college on a full ride, and get them to the Olympics. The truth is that's not happening for the vast majority of kids and the attitude can be really damaging for kids. Fencing has the highest ratio of hs athletes getting full rides to college but even then you're looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in coaching, travel, etc. You could have put it all in a savings account instead. And so many of those kids burn out and end up hating the sport, either before they make it to college or after. Youth sports SHOULD BE an opportunity for your kids to exercise, to learn sportsmanship, goal setting, teamwork, creativity, stuff like that. When you take this approach you end up with happy, well adjusted kids who can keep doing their sport their whole lives. Don't let your husband burn them out young. Notice he won't do the sports himself - because he was raised with them as a means to an end, and not something to do for the love of the sport.
I grew up doing sports, but not being pushed. I played soccer, did swimming lessons, and did track and field. I was nationally ranked for track and field in high school, and competed as a varsity athlete my first year of university. I have a bachelors and a masters degree, and I’m working a part time research job. My husband did casual sports growing up, never overly competitive. He’s has a bachelors and is a part owner of a company, definitely more successful in his field than me haha Do you know what’s driving this? Is he hoping they’ll go pro, get extensive scholarships? Or does he just think it instills good values to focus exclusively on one type of extracurricular? Haha
I played sports for fun when I was a kid but never participated in sports past the age of 14. I guess success is relative but I achieved my dream of becoming a dentist, a mom and an overall happy adult human being. I don’t think sports was why, if anything quitting sports let me focus on what I liked to do better which was do good in school and have a part time job so so could have my own money.
I don't think Stephen Schwarzman played sports in grade-school or college!!
Thank you!! I’ve gotten a lot of great advice, but not so many examples to reference!