Parents Siblings not in gym...

[mdot]

I think it's great that you're even thinking about the financial fairness of the situation. I don't think it will be an issue unless the other daughter can't do an activity because of her sister's gymnastics--whether it's due to money or time. And I do think time is a big issue to take into account when balancing family resources. My husband still remembers most of his childhood weekends spent at gyms watching his older sister's meets that we've decided one parent takes the gymnast to the meet and the other parents does something else with the other kids.

 

[Dahlia]

I think it's great that you're even thinking about the financial fairness of the situation. I don't think it will be an issue unless the other daughter can't do an activity because of her sister's gymnastics--whether it's due to money or time. And I do think time is a big issue to take into account when balancing family resources. My husband still remembers most of his childhood weekends spent at gyms watching his older sister's meets that we've decided one parent takes the gymnast to the meet and the other parents does something else with the other kids.

I find the time thing interesting. My ds would tell you he spends way to many weekends watching dd's meets. In reality, she has maybe 8 meets a year that are 4-5 hours total (so at most 40 hours of meets) and he does not go to all of them. On the flip side, ds has 2 baseball games per week April through mid-June (approximately 2 hours each) and then several scrimmages and weekend tournaments for his select team (at least 4 tournaments that consist of 3-5 2 hour games). That ends up being at minimum 68 hours of baseball games not counting scrimmages and dd ends up going to a majority of those that don't conflict with gym practice. That is no even counting the other sports he does less seriously. In reality, his sports takes a lot more "parent spectator" time, but it also costs a whole lot less! I do know dds hours will go up competition wise as she gets into optionals (more meets), but I don't think one will ever exceed the other! The feeling your dh has of spending time at his sister's meets may not actual be as much time as he remembers it being!

 

[RTT2]

I never worried about this, although my husband did. He used to feel like we had to some how "make it up" to DS that we weren't spending as much money or time driving him to sports. Then DS joined the competitive boys team over the summer. Parity achieved. Now we can spend a lot of time and money on gymnastics for both.

 

[Tmacs]

Interesting post! My oldest definitely knows we're spending more on our daughter's gym than the other two kids' sports combined. But what bothers him is the eating out we do after meets and the team "bonding." I think he doesn't feel he gets that attention/special outings with his sports. My gym daughter's twin gets bummed about the quantity of medals her twin has when she just gets a medal or trophy for a season (team sport girl). So I definitely feel like they are noticing something. But part of it is that she found her passion at a much earlier age than my son and her twin (who still loves everything but nothing at the same time...). I am trying to be very diligent in making it equitable if not equal.