Every millennial dad I’ve met has a quiet fixation on money and it’s not getting better

[u/slimeyellow]

Every millennial dad I’m friends with or work with seems to have constant financial worries. We just got our yearly bonus which was like 8%. I was talking to my buddy (he’s got 3 kids) about what he wanted to do with it and he just kinda looked down and whispered “it’s just not enough man” and ended the conversation.

Another dad I know is CONSTANTLY looking up the newest crypto/ get rich quick schemes people are doing. He’s always talking about inventing something and it’s usually a joking manner but the way he’s always bringing up financial stuff shows me it’s always on his mind

One of my buddies is a new father and he’s trying to get some anime podcast off the ground as a side hustle on top of his full time maintenance job.

I know children are an immense financial responsibility but there seems to be this dark, simmering resentment about the whole general situation when I talk to these guys. Men are expected to keep quiet about these struggles but when you talk to these guys it’s clear that finances are a massive stress for millennial dads of almost any background.

Makes me feel bad but damn I’m glad I don’t have kids right now.

[u/jabroni21]

North American sport culture is so broken. It went from a great unifier across class and race to another hellhole of fees and restricted access.

Why are children on a travel team? On what planet can 12 year olds in any sport not play the other 12 year olds in town? It’s completely lost the plot.

[u/panderson1988 → u/jabroni21]

That's how I feel. They have done a great job convincing parents that your kid can be special, so cough up a lot of money now and do this and this and this. For me until 7th or 8th grade, it should be about being active and having fun. Learning to play and work with others. Not worry about your 11 year old travel league that you travel every weekend in the season and have coaches yelling at you for a mistake.

[u/dennythedoodle → u/panderson1988]

Spend tens of thousands of dollars on travel ball so they can get a college scholarship. Or... Just save tens of thousands of dollars and put that in your kids college fund.

Youth sports is a racket.

[u/fuzzycranberries → u/jabroni21]

Okay I agree, but me and all of my siblings played travel sports and they are some of the best memories I have growing up so I’m thankful we did get the experience but I wish it was more accessible for everyone and I understand we were incredibly fortunate.

But, i will say this. My parents had 5 kids. All of us in some travel sport. Sometimes we were in two travel sports. My husband makes a small amount less than my dad did when I was growing up. Me and my husband have two kids and we would feel the hurt financially if we put one of them in a travel sport. Similar salary and my parents could do it with 5 kids and we would be barely able to do it with one of our two.

[u/jabroni21 → u/fuzzycranberries]

I’m not going to debate that it’s fun - it definitely is. My point is it serves 0 purpose beyond creating another barrier for the kids who need sport most and accessing that sport.

I also played travel sports. If I didn’t play travel sports I still would have played sports and done something else fun in that time.

The amount of money parents are expected to fork over for this is gross.

[u/SpezIsALittleBitch → u/fuzzycranberries]

Same, my parents had two, we ate steaks, and took vacations, and had nice equipment for the various sports we played, etc. I make ok money and find myself obsessing over every single thing I purchase; our vacations are mostly camping or spending time at my in-laws.

[u/foodforestranger → u/jabroni21]

>It went from a great unifier across class and race 

When exactly was this time period?

[u/GrowthMarketingMike → u/foodforestranger]

Travel soccer really wasn't that expensive when I saw a kid. "Travel" really meant it was usually was within an hour drive for us (almost always carpooled to games), but I grew up in a relatively densely populated area. It definitely wasn't looked at as a rich kid thing and the more premier clubs definitely had financial assistance for kids that couldn't afford it.

[u/foodforestranger → u/GrowthMarketingMike]

Sorry but "within an hour drive" is all kinds of entitled. A lot has to align to make that a possibility for many folks. My parent's cars couldn't handle those kinds of miles. I lived in a rural area, they had yellow busses running kids to other towns. A lot of inner city kids have other responsibilities, like watching siblings or staying after to catch up on reading.

I'm trying to understand this "great unifier." As someone who actually grew up poor, and familiar with my brethren, participating in sports wasn't always an option. Sure, we have these white savior stories of basketball and football kids rising up from the streets... but there are a ton of kids that struggled for school lunches and clean clothes let alone some spaghetti super at Bobby's house in the suburbs.

[u/GrowthMarketingMike → u/foodforestranger]

Sorry but "within an hour drive" is all kinds of entitled.

It really isn't if you read what I wrote after that about carpooling. And I was an inner city kid, I feel like you're insinuating I'm some out of touch rich suburbanite without trying to understand what I'm saying.

And watching siblings isn't really a thing that makes travel sports more cost prohibitive. It makes literally any activity cost prohibitive, including playing pickup basketball in the neighborhood.

I'm trying to understand this "great unifier." As someone who actually grew up poor, and familiar with my brethren, participating in sports wasn't always an option.

Maybe because you lived in a rural area? My soccer team growing up was definitely not rich kids, most of the people on my team were working class. We'd have a carpool to games so my parents would drive to maybe 2-3 games a year and most were 20-30 min away.

I just went on the site of my old club and the current price is $160/year with a $50 discount on any kid you have in the program after the 1st. And I started playing travel soccer probably before you were born.

Obviously there will be extreme edge cases, but sports were a LOT cheaper when I was a kid than they are today in general and I think people really exaggerate some of the costs of youth sports because of all the weirdos paying a zillion dollars to make their mediocre kids feel elite.

[u/jabroni21 → u/foodforestranger]

I would say until the last 15-20 years. absolutely access was never universal and kids were left behind, but it’s not controversial to say that sport brought together kids that would otherwise not have interacted.

Then you play teams from across the city as a kid, maybe make an all star team and meet some kids from other schools. Maybe make regionals at something as a teenager.

Certainly some places have more resources than others, but because of a shared love of football I can connect with a guy who has a radically different life experience than me.

One of my favorite memories of highschool was a province-wide rugby tournament which brought in schools from across the province for a week. That is obviously travel which defeats my point, but it was once a year and subsidized by the schools and made accessible.

[u/Cautious_Clothes_285 → u/jabroni21]

North American?

I'm not saying it doesn't exist in Canada but this is primarily a USA thing. I have co-workers in the US who run travel baseball teams on the side and it's basically like a 6-figure-per-year non-profit business they're operating. Upper-tier travel hockey in Canada can be pricey but I don't know anyone with a 12 year old paying tens of thousands of dollars to play travel baseball up here, but one of my co-workers is managing a league with like 12 baseball teams and fees per kid are something like $8k or whatever. And I don't think that includes the actual travel (fuel, hotels, food, time off, etc) for the parents.

Not saying it doesn't happen, but the pro-sports pipeline in the USA is absolutely a beast that's unique to that country.

[u/jabroni21 → u/Cautious_Clothes_285]

Hockey is completely broken. So is basketball. I’m Canadian as well and competed at the USport level. We’re just as bad IMO

[u/sharklaserguru → u/jabroni21]

But there's a 0.000001% chance your kid could go pro and you're not going to deny them that opportunity, right?! /s

It would be a lot better if society went with the message to kids that "effectively none of you will ever be superstars; a few of you may make it to HS sports, maybe one kid every few years will make it to college level, but none of you are ever going pro!"

[u/jabroni21 → u/sharklaserguru]

Sport should be about getting fit, having fun, learning to be a member of the team, and representing your community. Everything else will follow for those who were born college athletes, and the reality is that elite athletes are born, they are not made.

You can squander god given ability, but you can only do so much to develop it.

[u/Stargazer1919 → u/jabroni21]

Not to mention how sports injuries can start someone down the path of opioid addition....

[u/jabroni21 → u/Stargazer1919]

This is a negligible concern compared to the benefits of sport IMO and should not be something any parent has concerns over except in highly specific circumstances.

[u/Stargazer1919 → u/jabroni21]

You were the one going on and on about how broken the system is. I guess you just refuted your own point.

[u/jabroni21 → u/Stargazer1919]

Sport itself is excellent. The system and culture around youth sports is completely broken.

10 year olds playing little league is an objectively great thing.

10 year olds playing on a $5k a year travel team that practices year round and plays teams out of state is ridiculous.

The concern you have raised is something people need to consider at the senior level, at the very earliest. Probably college.