Parents 2 on Team?!?!?

[profmom]

One really important thing. Eldest is now off to college, but he also did a club sport year-round until his junior year, albeit not at a level that demanded ridiculous travel. With two parents working full time in career-oriented positions, we both had to be fully invested. I probably did a little more of the gym stuff, and I know more about gym even though we both started with no knowledge, but their dad did a lot of the dropoffs and pickups. When eldest was younger and doing two sports (yes, yes he did), his dad coached travel baseball for three or four seasons. We like to joke that we are both among the tiny percentage of Americans who understand cast deductions on bars, offsides in soccer, AND the infield fly rule. Sometimes it may take a while, but I gotta give it to you straight here (see what I just did?): if one person's career is not going to suffer, both parents have to pitch in, or you will need to have some help from what Sarah Hrdy calls alloparents.

In my case, DH and I did it together, but from time to time, we relied on a couple of other families in particular for help. We do live somewhat close to his parents, but they are both busy and aging, so they were not an option. But investing in gym relationships has been crucial to everyone's success. DS has a teammate who lives far away but has to come pretty close to our house to get to gym. Whenever they need it, he stays overnight with us, and whenever we need it, they pick him up for us.

I think one solo parent with a career and without a network of relationships can manage two in gym in the early years, but I believe it would be very, very difficult once both are in optionals, unless the career is something with a great deal of autonomy and ability to set one's own hours. Over the years, I have seen repeatedly that parents without partners or with totally disinvested partners make it because they develop alloparental relationships with other gym parents.

 

[my4buffaloes]

I have 2 on team. It was very hard in the beginning. For years they had the exact opposite schedule with their practices never overlapping for a minute. Just when we thought we couldn't handle it anymore (we did it for 4 years) my youngest moved up to optionals as well and they have mostly been on the same or very close schedules every since.

As for paying for it - I went back to work, we do whatever fundraising the booster club offers, dh got a 2nd job, we get a sibling discount, etc. We just figure out a way to make it work. If your girls stick with it you will too. I have other kids as well that are not in gymnastics so we really are spread thin. But I will do whatever to help my kids succeed.

 

[l.c.o]

Eventually they will be on the same schedule because they will both just be at the gym all the time.

Hahahahahahaha LOL LOL LOL

Yes, this is sometimes the case, but not always.

While each of my kids is there 4-5 days per week, and YES this year we lucked into similar schedules, I am 99.9% sure that next year this won’t be the case at all.

It’s a mixed bag. Some years are better than others, and making four trips to the same place in one day is the opposite of convenient or fun, but we make it work.

DS also plays other sports, so we juggle that in.

It takes a lot of commitment, and let me say it’s so much easier if BOTH parents buy in and share the work. DH coaches baseball and I do most of the volunteering in the gym/at school.

Overall, there’s really not much difference than if my kids were serious about two different sports.

 

[sewgood]

I have two kids and both are on team. The gym is almost an hour away, plus my husband and I both work full time as well as having coaching jobs. It’s hard, for sure. Definitely makes me appreciate my parents’ sacrifices when I was a kid even more. At least my home, school and gym were all in the same town, though! Anyway, I grew up going to a gym all the time, so it doesn’t seem too crazy to me. Lol

 

[gymisforeveryone]

How usual is it that both parents work full time? Let's say we talk about school age children and their parents?

All of my gymnasts have siblings and I'm pretty sure that in most families there are 2-4 kids doing year around sports, practicing 2-7 nights a week and competing also. I wonder how they all make it work, financially and time-wise. But I rarely hear anyone complain, and the kids just show up... And they pay the bills on time. We have many families who have more than one gymnast on team. They find it easier than if they were in different sports.

Next weekend we are heading to a training camp (this is for all team members) and the cost is nearly 300 euros. I know that most of my gymnasts have parents in pretty well paid jobs like as teachers, doctors, engineers etc. And as far as I know all of them work full time. But still, sometimes the costs scare me. I hope that no one of them has financial issues, I would hate to lose gymnasts because of that.

 

[CuriousCate]

There are lots of families at my dd's gym with multiple kids on team - they seem to be at the gym all the time! Hopefully you live close enough to drop them off and go home during practice. Makes for longer meet weekends when they compete on different days. At least they're in the same sport going to the same gym - might be easier than driving them two different places and dealing with different competition/tournament weekends.

This is also how we look at it. I also have a 7 and 5 yo in the sport on teams and we both work full time as well. As the 5 yo moved to lv2 it became a bit easier bc the practice times overlap at least a bit so I can get a work out in or have the babysitter drop the off from school and then DH and I alternate the pick ups based on who gets out of work earlier. When they practiced totally different schedules, it was definitely tougher and we felt like we were always there. I would definitely talk to the coaches in advance about trying to get their practice schedules to line up. It made a world of difference.

 

[CoachS]

I was reading this thread and apparently I posted on accident so... Hi!

I can't delete it, so here is my edit, lol.

 

[Juniper311]

How usual is it that both parents work full time? Let's say we talk about school age children and their parents?

In my extremely local, 4-year experience... pretty common. While I don’t survey everyone I meet, and I’m not hugely talkative... at least half of those I know.