Long gone are the days of a "true" summer vacation. When I was in high school, getting out of school for the summer meant getting away from the school. It meant going on vacation with the family, having family reunions by visiting relatives who lived out of state, or just hanging out with your friends.
Unfortunately, that is not the case these days with today's younger generation. Now that Alex has graduated from high school, Cameron is left to carry the torch. This means mandatory daily workouts in preparation for football in the fall. Football "camps" which is really a sneaky way of getting in some football practice prior to the official start of the season. Mandatory fundraisers that infringe on your weekend time. High school summer baseball, which involves doubleheader games at least twice a week and, starting next week, summer school. Cameron is taking two classes, not because he failed anything or needs to repeat a class for an improved grade, rather he is trying to gain some ground on the required classes needed for graduation.
He is taking personal fitness (gym) and health. These are two required electives that he truly will not have room to take in his four years, without sacrificing something. He is a member of the PCEP orchestra, which is a full-year class, and will be a four-year comitment for him. There goes one slot for electives. He will be taking a foreign language for at least two years, there goes another elective spot. He is required by his parents (if not the state) to have four years of math, science, history, and english. There goes the rest of his schedule. When will he have time to take gym, health, or God forbid, something fun like cooking, photography, accounting, etc.? I find it so ironic that we're paying for him to take gym in the summer, when he is participating in daily football workouts and playing high school baseball. Something's not right and the requirements need to be changed so that students participating in a high school sport receive credit for it.
It's unfortunate that so many courses are offered at the Park, but he is unable to take advantage of them. Oh, I forgot--throw in the expected requirement of taking "advanced football" which is a class players are "highly recommended" to take during the football season, if not all year round, so they can get in their daily workouts--and you have the typical makings of too many requirements, too little time.
I long for the days when a kid had time to be a kid and parents had time to have a life. Now their schedules are so jam packed with workouts, practices, traveling to far away games, and homework there isn't time to go on a vacation during summer vacation! There's never time to take a break. The pressure to start prepping for the next sport begins during the prior sport. It is this way with all sports. I know that basketball camps and clinics are going on right now, and basketball season doesn't even begin until November or December! Pom tryouts, practices, and camps are also in full swing for next year's school season and competitions.
For years this has been something we've done our best to work around. But when you get into the higher grades, there is no working around it. You either adjust, or your kid suffers the consequences. When I was in high school, if you felt the urge to try out for a sport for the fun of it, you could, and chances are you would make it. For instance, I decided to go out for cheerleading my senior year and I made it! If that happened now, I feel certain there would be protests. Nowadays, if you haven't been professionally playing a sport since you were five, forget it. These days kids are signed up for one camp or another on a regular basis beginning at a young age. There is lots of competition to be the best. Unfortunately, I think most of the competition is between the parents and not the kids.
I understand, we make the choice to participate in these activities. Rather, we let our child make the choice, and then we need to support it. But what I don't support is how playing a high school sport has become a career choice for the family, rather than an extracurricular activity for the student.
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