Understimulated or Overscheduled

Claire: [00:00:00] Having kids really sucks if you're someone who hates doing things that you don't wanna do.

Quinn: Welcome to Not Right Now, the podcast about parenting through all of this.

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I'm Claire Zulkey from Evil Witches.

Quinn: And I'm Quinn Emmett from Important, Not Important.

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Claire: And reminder, you can send questions or feedback to questions at not right now dot show.

So you have the two kids in baseball right now, and your middle kid, she also, tell me what your sports are right now?

Quinn: She's doing the ninja stuff right now. She's really into that. That's super fun. So that's not too bad. It's twice a week. It could be more. She's a little nervous about that. And also her friend wouldn't be going to the other parts as much as I would love to ship her outta the house again, I recognize I would be driving more anyways.

And the boys are getting into baseball now. A couple weeks of practice, spring break, then the games start. They're already like, what time is my game on Saturday the 19th? I'm like, I have no idea what time it is. I can't help you.

Claire: You mean your calendar hasn't been, like that's, we haven't even mentioned on our notes, like the software and the calendar populating that goes into sports.

Quinn: I'm [00:02:00] crazy about it, I'm a Nazi about calendars, but we don't have the schedules yet, so I was like, I dunno. I don't make these things up. They're not my rules. But yeah. So that's what, we're entering spring. The oldest will still do some swimming here and there.

But trying not to fucking burn 'em out on anything. Much less that dumb sport that I spent my whole life in. But it'd be good, you know, sitting outside of practice, nighttime it's good. So I think those are the things we're committed to right now. There's a couple little afterschool things here and there, but I don't really count those because I don't have to drive them to them.

I just have to pick them up 'cause it's afterschool, you know what I mean?

Yeah. What about you?

Claire: Well, volleyball is at school, but not directly after school. So there's been a lot of drive to school, pick up from school, go back to school. But I like volleyball because it's very contained in every play scores a point, so it moves really fast.

Paul, my older one, his team is not doing so well so far, but selfishly, he has contributed to every game. Like volleyball seems to be a good sport for him. So it is nice to be like, well, he scored some points because I've [00:03:00] also seen him be in sports where he added nothing, you know, I’m not being a jerk.

Like he just was like the youngest and the smallest. And, you know, he has fun. I don't know if he has hustle the way his little brother does. I hate the term hustle. I never had hustle. I still don't as a, you know, an athlete. And then there is tennis coming up, which is gonna be a total mystery.

And we only signed our younger son up for that because the choices were between that and track and I purely did not want to go to track meets.

And I'm like, he should pick up tennis pretty well. We play badminton in the backyard. He actually, again, has hustle, half the battle is moving around the court.

Quinn: Sure. He can do that. Like you don't have to teach him to run around the court. Like the technique of not lobbing the ball over the fence is a different thing, but that’s fine.

Claire: Yeah. And if he can play baseball and play badminton, he could probably play tennis and then baseball and people are listening and haven't done baseball yet. It is fascinating how you sign up in February probably. And then at some point in April the schedule lands on your [00:04:00] head and it is like good luck.

Like you have to figure it out 'cause it probably has nothing to do with your actual calendar and like what you would get done. And you know, games are supposed to last an hour and a half, but you never know 'cause if it's a nice night, it may last longer.

Quinn: Don't forget half an hour early to warm up, and if you don't put that on the calendar, you're late. Or they get confused about, is it a warmup? The whole thing.

Claire: Yeah. And our younger son was complaining because he and his friends are the only fourth graders on the team with a bunch of third graders. And I'm like, well, you get to be you know, the big boy, the superstar, you know, and for anyone who is out there who has a kid who is young and like worries about them being like the, you know, the non superstar.

We had a funny thing happen last year where my son who has an August birthday, young for his grade, was on two championship teams with his best friend 'cause just, to be honest, he was on teams that just did really well. Like he contributed a little bit more for baseball than football. But, your kid can enjoy being on a championship team [00:05:00] without necessarily being like the big kid. But this season will be interesting because odds are they won't do it again. We'll see how it goes. It's always a rough start to the season when it's freezing cold here and they're not warmed up, things like that.

So, you know. But I think back to when they were like in second grade and it was Covid and like the inning would start with nine runs, walked in 'cause it was the start of kid pitch.

Quinn: Oh God.

Claire: Yeah. Yeah. And you're struggling to find any upside, to even lie to your kid. Like you're just like, I know this sucks.

It sucks. You gotta grind it out. And it does get better, but it is so hard to find any upside. Like it is, it can be really rough out there.

Quinn: It can be pretty brutal. All right. So is that everything you guys are doing for the spring? Because I know you opted out of most things in the winter. How did that go? What's your postmortem on that?

Claire: That was bad. I mean here's the options. Basically, as a parent, if you have a kid in sports, and I wanna put a little asterisk because I think we should talk to the parents whose kids are not into sports.

Quinn: Oh, there's 4,000 things to do, and they're all either [00:06:00] expensive or you have to drive to 'em or this or that, but yeah, no, it's not just sports.

Claire: No. There's two options. You are either understimulated and your kids are bored and you are all sick of each other and stir crazy. Or you are overscheduled and you're sick of everything and you're always washing and keeping track of equipment and packing up and yelling at someone to remember their water bottle or like their equipment.

And there's no in between. We did swim class like a once a week, half an hour class simply to brush up on strokes, honestly, to get outta the house, you know, that’s not really competitive. So yeah, I wouldn't do it again. It sounds great until it's like a long winter and you're like, I can't stand looking at you.

And we all hate each other and there's 20 minutes of homework were not it. I mean, we're in a place now where we're more used to it, I guess, like we've given in, you know, we've fallen asleep in the cold and like this is nice and comfortable.

And our kids they don't complain about sports. Like they still show up. You know what I mean? They go along, they get along, 'cause our kid, especially the young guy, used to lay down, during soccer class, [00:07:00] Little Kickers. And I would be so torn between being mad at him for doing that and embarrassing me and also just like mad at myself like, I don't wanna be here.

This sucks. You know? What is this all about? So it's a pleasure to have moved past that and to be like, wow, we're actually watching actual competition going on. Sometimes you watch some amazing plays and to see that happen is, you know, it's like when you plant a seed and you take care of it and actually you see a little flower on there and you're like, okay, you know, finally.

Quinn: Yeah. You're not gonna reforest the planet here but it's something you planted a flower, even if you've almost killed it 40 times.

Yeah. For us, like coming back to your comment about the 20 minutes of homework is not enough. Like our sort of baseline is like at all times you have to be signed up to do something with your body.

I don't care what it is except football, we're not doing it. Which is a whole different thing. I mean it's not a whole different thing. It's a huge part of the thing. But we're not doing it. Know too much, but not too much 'cause there's three of them. [00:08:00] And, you know, again, we've got this great support system with the two grandmas. And they're great and, you know, they can help with some things. They can't help with other things. And they're semi interchangeable but not, and Dana's working in a lot of her West coast hours, so she can't necessarily help with the driving at night, which is fine. You know, that's the work that's keeping the family going. And also we want them to have some boredom. As long as it doesn't affect us, we want them to have some free time to you know, 12, 13, sit in the fucking basement and listen to your, you know, Kurt Cobain which I'm sure will end well. But it's a struggle, right?

So that's just body stuff. Like at one point our youngest had found a, I'm really bummed this ended, the little coffee shop downstairs, seats 12, 13 people and they started having Tuesday night chess nights and it was 'cause the university's right here, William Mary's right here.

It was mostly like professors and students. And then my 8-year-old who just, it was really nice for him because it was a way to engage, but he had to act a little grown up. But also they were all so [00:09:00] nice and patient with, they would obliterate him in 10 seconds, which for his ego, that was super helpful.

But then they would say, okay, let's reset. Let's work our way through this. Let's do this. And he would be tired at the end, but in a good way, you know? And so that's great. And I didn't mind taking him. That was easy for me 'cause it's downstairs, so someone would drop 'em off. I would stay. That was super helpful logistics wise, it cost like $3 to sign up on Eventbrite, which is, I mean, as you know, like whenever everyone's like why is the US soccer team so bad? It's like, well, it's complicated. One, we have football and basketball, which takes a lot of great athletes and basketball at least is much more affordable. And has historically a faster, easier track to actually making money from it. But also soccer's so expensive. Like it's completely insane. Like they're all that way, but it's crazy. So whenever it was like chess for three bucks and it's downstairs, great man, I'll do it.

And so whenever one of my kids is like, I wanna do this, I'm like, great. That's all the shit I'm constantly weighing at all times, you know?

Claire: I wanna talk a little bit about the importance of sports [00:10:00] to parents, especially dads, because I wanna know whether you were raised in a family where you would've maybe struggled in terms of your identity or relationship with your parents if you were not a sports kid, and how that would go.

Quinn: Yeah, I could see, you know, it was the opposite in the sense that, again, like I was six foot, 170 when I was like 11 and a half.

And then, by the way, I have not grown since that day. Everyone was like, he's gonna be six six. And it was great. And I crushed everyone. I was like, top 25 swimmer in the country for this and this. I was throwing a baseball. I think it was like when I was 14, I was throwning at 82, 83, no idea where it's fucking going. Just like killing children left and right.

I was the kid, the parents were like, no we definitely need to see a birth certificate. This can't be right. And it's definitely not safe for anyone involved. So I was also, you know, somewhat talented at those things, because of those built in things I definitely tried less than I could have but I would get away with it 'cause I was [00:11:00] enormous.

I didn't get away with it in school. But certainly high on my own supply for a lot of that, you know. I really loved and still love though it's finally starting to diminish beating people. To me there's like a subtle difference. There's winning and there's beating people and I really liked beating people.

Claire: Wow.

Quinn: It's not great 'cause it, it turns out it also applied to like adulthood and board games with new friends.

Dana was like, this isn't fun for anybody involved. And she's Switzerland, as she says, she just wants everyone to have a great time. She'll just give people pieces of, you know, Settlers of Catan.

Claire: You could have been an attorney in another world.

Quinn: Yeah not great. I mean, I loved it. I really loved it. Again, high on my own supply part of it. Everybody did some version of sports. I ended up swimming and playing baseball in college. And my siblings did various versions of that and they did other stuff too.

Like my younger brother swam, and played some baseball, but he also stayed at the little fife and drum corps here in town. I did that for two years, but then they were like. Well, it either [00:12:00] becomes almost a full-time job and it's really cool. You learn a ton of history, you make money, you know, you show up, you learn a lot of structure, you get taught amazing music, you have a great relationship with people but you can't do everything else at the same time.

So I definitely chose more of the sports route and I'm sure there could have been some sort of issues, but there wasn't like, you're gonna do this. I elected myself into that and for my kids, again, like our rule is just you gotta use your bodies, man.

We're not gonna be indoor cats and you know, I'm not making you run outside. I feel like I've learned a little bit from that. When I signed Oliver up for baseball when he was younger and then I coached his team, like I was definitely the Dad who rode him harder than the other kids. Not fun for everyone. So now, coach needs help. Sure, I'll jump in,

I'll help out. But I don't care if it's chess or whatever. And Dana, she didn't grow up really doing any sports. She like skied some and horseback riding for a little bit, but otherwise was theater and all this and school apparently, [00:13:00] which is interesting. So less pressure on that front, but it's kind of turned into, again, you gotta do something with your body but not too much 'cause you're a child and we don't wanna do all that and there's three of you. Also try a bunch of stuff, but once you sign up for something, you're gonna complete whatever the season is or whatever. We're not signing up, quitting, signing up, quitting, signing up, quitting. 'cause that's not life unfortunately. So I guess that's kind of it. That's what's boiled down to, for us at least, the ground rules of the whole thing.

As you know, like they're getting older and then they start to be like, no, this is my thing. And you're like, oh boy, here we fucking go.

Claire: It's just interesting because I was sort of slotted into sports when I was younger and I didn't have control over it. And my dad is a very Boomer man in that he still can remember like the 1952 Chicago White Sox lineup, you know, and he's a real sports guy and so he taught me to bat left-handed because that would obviously help me, you know, become a professional baseball player.

And I'm not left-handed. And he [00:14:00] would like make me stay in the backyard to get three more good hits or whatever, but then my brother was born and he has these kind of weird eye issues where he can only see out of one eye at a time. And he has these like hand eye coordinations and he's just not a hustler.

He ended up getting into TaeKwonDo and cross country. But in high school I was on the badminton team freshman and sophomore year, which actually I think in retrospect was a lot of fun, good sport to be into. But I quit as soon as I could and got into like drama and theater and stuff.

And then in adulthood got more into sort of more meditative sports. Now, lately I was into running until like the one piston broke and I can't do it anymore. And that's fine. And now I’m into golf, which is good for like nothing matters, let's take a nice long walk, you know?

But my husband was not like a real sports kid either. So it's just been interesting to have these boys who they know, like instinctively they need to get exercise. Like they get themselves outside and get exercise and I'm thankful for that. But it is just kind of crazy, especially with the younger [00:15:00] one. Like he will practice diving catches, like he will have you throw the ball to the ground, to the right so he can practice diving.

And I've seen him make that catch in a game and I'm like, well, he worked on it. But it feels like a strange privilege because the world, America is set up for athletics, for kids athletics.

And it's not fair because not every kid likes to do that, you know?

Quinn: Or they do, and it's just totally not available to them because they don't have a system of people who can take them to all this shit. Much less afford it.

Claire: Yeah, sign them up. Yeah, exactly. And I remember a couple years ago having a play date with a friend of my kids. And the two of the kids started playing catch just 'cause there was a ball around and this boy didn't wanna play catch and he was mad as fuck. And his mom, I could tell, was feeling bad for him. And I felt bad for him too 'cause I was like, not every kid wants to play sports and fortunately we live in a place like we live by this park district where they have something called the Imagination Game, which is like a LARPing kind of long form game that people play and, you know, [00:16:00] that's great.

But we work pretty hard to keep them at a very mid-level. I hear these travel stories, travel baseball, and I'm like, this sounds awful, like, I don't wanna.

Quinn: No thanks. Yeah. I'm like, as much as I do firmly believe in like objectively and in isolation there is a lot to learn from both individual sports and team sports. Right. And so our three sort of ground rules for anything you do, but I guess especially sports are, and they're kind of a flywheel, they work together, is try as hard as you can. Right? Which is different, I think, from do your best 'cause a lot of times it's not your fucking best, but it's the effort. Be the best teammate you can be and have fun.

When we talk to 'em about that and we go over and over, we're like, being a great teammate is fun. Trying your hardest isn't always fun, but it is being a great teammate and et cetera, et cetera.

And again, I don't care if that applies to theater or ballet. Definitely not football. Or you know, the Battle of the [00:17:00] Books thing. It's like you said you wanted to do this, you think it's cool to be the kid up on stage? I think it's awesome. You do have to read the books.

That's part of being a good teammate. You can't just like be cool up there. If you're gonna do it, you gotta show up. And it's the same for band or whatever it is. I do think you learn a lot about like how to handle yourself and how to be responsible to people in a sport of some sort. I think, you know, one of the positives of like a swimming or track is that it is the earliest lesson in control what you can control 'cause it really is, as much as it's technically a team sport you can't control at all what the other people are doing as opposed to baseball or soccer, whatever. You really can only control like your race and that is a nice lesson. You can cheer for people and all that, but can also get that in theater, whatever. So when it really boils down to me it's your thing of using your body is I'm gonna walk the dog two miles a day. Great. I don't give a shit, but you do have to do, again, other things that will get you those more fundamental lessons 'cause it's at some point, it's a little hard to learn them.

Claire: So here's [00:18:00] where I come out as an unexpected football parent, where I was you and I was like, never football. I know all the reasons why, I've written content for the American Concussion Society and the International Concussion, like, and we all know about CTE and everything that's wrong with the NFL, but a couple years ago we were switching the kids from one school to another for various reasons that we'll get into.

And my kids were a little nervous about it and reluctant. And so they were touring this new school and there was a big picture of Evanston Catholic football team on the wall. And my son, my older son was gazing at it wistfully. And I say for a lot of kids, especially boys, like the trajectory goes from superheroes to Star Wars to Pokemon to athletes in terms of guys that you collect and the guys that you're interested in.

So he had just gotten into football guys, you know, and I said, if I let you play football, would you be interested in transferring to the school [00:19:00] more? And he said, yeah. And I was like, well, shit. I had heard really good things about the way this team was organized. I had done a little bit of due diligence, and I was like, well what the hell? Honestly, I hate to sound so fatalistic, but you can get hit in the head with a hundred mile an hour baseball, just even attending a game as a spectator.

Quinn: Sure. Sure. Totally.

Claire: So, so yeah, so my son did tackle football. Like I said, he is young and small, so he hasn't seen a lot of action.

I think he's kind of relieved about that in a way that I totally identify with. But when he first got his equipment and was putting on his pads and all that stuff, and you should have seen the way his little brother came out and looked at him like he was Iron Man.

I don't know what to say and so last year his team won the championship.

He got put in as a favor, you know, the last five minutes as a, here you go. I don't know if he wants to play next year 'cause he would probably have to play more and I'm like, this is totally up to you. You have to [00:20:00] do something, but if you don't wanna play I respect it. And I will say another mom I know, she said her son got a concussion, not by playing in a game, but because his friend tackled him on the sideline without wearing a helmet and just playing around.

Again, something that can happen without football. I don't have a takeaway on this. I guess my only story is how you can start off having one, you know, one set of values and then you go down a little primrose path.

Quinn: No. Totally. And by the way, like it helped him transfer like, I will do anything to bribe my children. I don't give a shit about that. And then I'll just sneak it away. But yeah, it's part of the knowing too much, understanding more and more like how little we know about the brain other than like how much it gets damaged but can it build comradery?

Of course. You know, like when I got to college, so swimming started first. It doesn't matter what the sport is, but for me, like you had to be there a week early for swimming 'cause it's the only sport that goes like all year. And I showed up and didn't know anyone at the school, but after one day I had 60 friends 'cause of practice and it's [00:21:00] just like that for transferring for whatever, like I don't care what it is that's amazing, football, whatever the roster is, 52 guys. That's amazing. And you have some structure and you have people who can say this is what's cool and little pods and who are these and who am I hanging out with and who do I model myself after? That's all awesome. It's just the end result that's like often not really fucking great. And it's too bad and I do hope it changes. And I know some of the scientists working on the CTE blood tests which could, you know, eventually, hopefully cripple the whole thing. But I get it, you know, it, it pushes 'em, it's all great, but there's pros and cons to everything.

Like I tell my kids all the time there's so many great things about swimming and they swim for my old coach and he's an amazing guy. And all he does is put out like good kids.

But there's something really fucked up about winning and losing races by like hundredths of a second that's not great for you.

And going back and forth all the time and body issues, like it's all a thing, you know? Same with like gymnastics.

Claire: Yeah. Oh my God. That was like, did you read that article in the New York Times? I think it [00:22:00] was last year that came out about the like social media and gymnastics and like dance and like the gear that's marketed towards girls and the moms who had their girls model.

Quinn: It's a fucking nightmare. But look, you know, look man, you can pick anything apart, right?

Scouts is awesome. It's not even just Boy Scouts anymore. I think they just call it Scouts of America, whatever. There's incredible stuff about it and horrific things, like, we can do this about church.

Claire: We can do that about anything.

Quinn: But I'm just, there's certain things that like you can kind of recover from, like broken legs and shit like that. The brain thing is just one where I'm like you don't get that back.

Claire: Yeah, well it was just interesting 'cause like again, back to my Boomer dad, he was like watching the football game and he is like I hope Paul doesn't feel bad that he is riding the bench so much. And I'm like, are you kidding? Look at him. He's having fun with his friends goofing around but it was just kind of funny because he told me that in football the coaches cuss out the kids.

And because there's so much practice of football and the kids are a little bit older, you drop them off and you don't observe as much as you might with baseball. And I was like, man, if [00:23:00] this was like a couple years ago, I would've been so mad and scared and I don't know what, protective. And now in a weird way, there was an old Portlandia sketch called Safe Bully where a school hired someone to be a bully at the school so you could get bullied safely.

And I'm like, maybe to a certain extent, a little bit of cussing out by your football coaches. It's like Safe Bully, 'cause you're gonna get cussed out appropriately at some point.

Quinn: It is a process. It's a step. There's an age where it's not appropriate, and then where it's like probably not, and then sure, why not, and then it's you know, all the handles are off. It doesn't matter what the sport is or the thing, you know? I mean, God knows there's like theater directors that are monsters as well.

So one of my favorite things growing up, I still love, truly is like coaching of any kind, teaching of any kind. Something I'm familiar with like swimming or music or band or baseball or whatever. So again, but I know at least my limits with my own kids where I'm like, I don't wanna ruin this for them.

If they even seem interested, I will help. If it's needed, I will try to be cool about it. I will give [00:24:00] them twice as many constructive compliments as I rag on them. I've tried to get better about that, but, you know, I remember watching one of their swim practices and they're so big.

I don't have to watch any of this shit anymore. The practices the least. They think it's fun 'cause I've always kind of been there. But one of the coaches was like, Hey man, you could, you're here. Like you could help coach. You could do this and this. And I said to him, why would I wanna, you're in charge of my kid for an hour, why would I absolve you of that, put that back on me. I'll coach other people's kids like, fuck yeah. But no, like you were saying, the 20 minutes of homework is not enough. Like I need, at their baseball practice last night, this wonderful family coach. He's like a marine accountant, and he's so positive and such a good person and coach and constructive, but he's also a Marine.

Like so many of the parents around here, and there's nothing better than, you know, the kids are fucking around like a little bit. I'm sitting in my chair just kind of watching and I'm like, oh, they're running laps and I don't have anything to do with this. [00:25:00] Someone else is like, stop fucking around and do your thing. I'm like that is worth all of the driving is someone else being like, stop being a dipshit. Go run.

Claire: You can always tell which kid is the coach's kid by whichever kid is getting yelled at the most. My husband is gonna coach tennis, which is hilarious because he has as much experience coaching tennis as my son has playing tennis. But he was promised that he won't have to coach his own son.

Like he can coach the kids who are really good at tennis, so he doesn't have to actually do anything. So, I don't have any dreams of my kids getting into sports. I would be surprised if my older kid played any sport, like on a team in high school, like club sports for sure.

And the younger kid, he has such a brain for stats that I don't typically think ahead like this, but I'm like, you know, some kind of like sports analytics thing.

Quinn: Does he want to join my fantasy baseball league? 'cause I'll kick somebody out.

Claire: He would love to. They are so into March Madness right now and the brackets, and I had a big punishment for my younger one 'cause he spilled milk.

There's context around this. I'm not just a mean lady who gets mad at a kid for spilling milk. He spilled it in a really [00:26:00] stupid way and he spilled it on my bracket and I was like, I'm just throwing it away. And he said, well you could dry it off. I was like, no, it's milk. It's gonna stink. I'm out. I'm out of the bracket. And that's how we fight.

Quinn: As if it's like fucking papyrus from the 19 hundreds, it's gone. Library of Alexandria. Sorry, it burned. We'll never know.

I was like, all right, kids, we'll do brackets, whatever. And I used to work and sort of run the ESPN fantasy sports stuff a thousand years ago. And I went into the tournament challenge thing that they've got 'cause I'm still kind of a homer for it. And you know, we're up to 25 million brackets entered and they've got this really cool, perfect bracket thing now where they run all the math in the background. It's like, this is how many are left, this is how many are at risk right now with the games that are on the floor and all this stuff. And it's great. And we kept watching it. And so I just had made like a 10 seconds, automatic pick, bracket, and changed a couple things for each of my kids. Four days into this thing my oldest, his bracket, he didn't even know it existed until I printed it out for him, was ranked 1000 outta 24 [00:27:00] million and he's going to school I got one of the top brackets in the world. I'm like, do you? Sure. And just again, high on his own supply. He's a 12 and a half year old boy.

But, not anymore. He got throttled. He was like, why didn't you pick Duke? 'cause fuck Duke. Sorry. I'm not gonna Duke that.

Claire: I picked Duke because the way the world is, I was like, I'm gonna pick every team that I would root against because that is how I feel like things are. Yeah. I made a mistake. I picked Yale in one case 'cause they were like a, you know, had an upset last year and anyway, don't do that.

Quinn: Can we go back to the toxic sort of the cussing thing for, 'cause I just remembered something really specific, so I remembered it for two reasons. One, I think I told you we've been cleaning out our attic and I found a huge box of all my old trophies, which of course I'm still holding onto, a whole different thing. My Dad would say high school hero, college zero. It's fine. Well, we can dig into that later. And it made me think of, you're talking about the cussing and what age? So little league, I was probably 10ish. It was before I became like [00:28:00] a man that looked like this at 11, so it's gotta be like 10 ish. And I had this coach and I don't remember his name. And he was a real hard ass, but wasn't military just like real, slightly older than Boomer, but not Greatest Generation. And his kid was on the team from what I remember, and this guy was just like an asshole to 10 year olds. And just like football, baseball, you get some of the old salted guys who are mad they didn't make it and they're this and it's just tough and it's baseball but he was so mean that, and this is kind of surprising to me for a thousand other reasons, and I'm sure I'm misremembering some part of this, but I spoke with a friend about it a few years ago. He was so mean and he was yelling at me so much, again we're nine and 10, this little league field, idyllic little thing, while I was in center field that my dad stopped the game and took me off the field and said[00:29:00] he's out. We're not doing it anymore. And I'm surprised that happened, but also, again, I'm sure I'm misremembering what the guy was saying, I was 10 or whatever. But for that to have instigated that action, it must have been pretty bad. And I do think to myself now, like at 10, like there's no version of me. And I mean, not like cussing at the kids in practice or like in the dugout close talk. Like I was in center field and he's yelling at me from the dugout like horrific things.

Like I probably wouldn't pull my kid out. I would probably just like beat the shit outta this guy. It probably wouldn't be great. I would probably start saying horrible things back to him in front of everyone, like that I'm totally not okay with.

Claire: What is it about baseball in particular? Like we talk about football, you know, and concussions and we didn't even get into like hockey and lacrosse culture, but why is baseball so full of heartbreak? It's just funny 'cause like I talked to some friends of mine, even my dad, and I talked to male friends of mine and they all have these really acute memories of sobbing after a baseball game, after a hard loss.

[00:30:00] And you know, like this heartbreak.

Quinn: I think it's a little different than, soccer and hockey are so similar besides, you know, sort of the violence side of it. And I love hockey, I love soccer. Again, there's things to love about football. I even played, I mean, speaking of horror show, when I quit swimming in baseball in college and my last year, I was like, oh, I'm gonna be a free agent and do nothing and hang out and party.

And then I joined rugby.

So if I ever like dim out during a conversation, it's 'cause of rugby. And then on the other spectrum, you've got your swimming or your track or whatever it might be, or ice skating by yourself, right? Without a partner. Baseball's such a weird hybrid where it is a team thing. But when you get up to bat or you're pitching, really those two situations, you are responsible for the whole game and the whole team. And if you drop a ball, you are responsible. You know, it's different than like, I missed a pass. Great. There's gonna be another pass in one second.

But the odds of a ball getting hit to you are so low, and because there's only three outs that you need to get.

But at the same time, those can take so long and be so hard to get. And the opportunity for an easy one, the [00:31:00] math of it all, I think is part of that. Where you're just like, I'm very young to be put on the spot, basically.

Claire: Probably 'cause that's why I think my son likes volleyball, is that there are so many, especially as they get better, there's so many opportunities to contribute and it moves so fast.

Quinn: Over and over and over.

Claire: Yeah in my son's baseball championship game last year and, you know, I think he got a hit or he got a walk. So you're like, okay. He did add something.

But my dad again, Boomer, very, Mr. Baseball, Mr. Field of Dreams. He was like, I just hope the game doesn't all come down to Paul. And he's not the reason why they lose. This was like the fifth inning, you know?

Quinn: He said that out loud and Paul was what, 11?

Claire: Yeah, I mean Paul didn't hear it, but I heard it and I was like, dad, that is such a weird way to think 'cause I was like, what if that was some other kid? Would you feel relieved if that was like, all came down to some other kid? And if it did happen to Paul, so what?

We would move past it. You know? It's just an odd way of, instead of thinking I hope they win and I hope he enjoys the fun of celebrating, which he did. And that was a whole other feeling for [00:32:00] me as someone who is not a competitive child, to feel this sense of I dunno if this is the right word, this is a real take, a real left turn. I know in the poly community there's a phrase called compersion.

Quinn: I knew we were fucking going here.

Claire: Well, speaking of team sports. But like when you feel pleasure for someone else's enjoyment, and when I saw them all throw their mitts up in the air and run out to the fence and hop on the fence, I was like, I haven't really felt this much pleasure for someone and since I last saw this girl win Bingo a couple years ago at school and she won the American Girls doll, and I was like, wow good for her.

Quinn: But the coming back to your dad thing again as someone who took until six months ago, like losing at anything extremely personally and like that it was live or die and I had to beat this person and so much of my self-confidence, relied on it, but is now transitioned into again, watching my kids do things and like you said, whether they make a middle school team or a high school team or whatever it is or not get picked for the musical, whatever, they're starting to care, right? Which they didn't care if they

[00:33:00] get slaughtered when they're nine. They didn't give a shit. They were just having a great time and spitting sunflower seeds. I have really tried to intentionally say so like when one of them says I wanna get this time, or I hope I get two hits today. I'm like, that's awesome for you man. I will pay attention to it if you want me to pay attention to something, but I am not gonna be the guy, 'cause I could very easily be the guy who's like, why didn't you get two hits today?

But it's so interesting to see and again, fucking Boomers, sorry for your dad. But fucking Boomers, like it's amazing to be that old and in the generation below your kids and still be holding onto like, that is not about Paul. That's about him. Right?

Claire: I mean, I goof around with him and I'm like, you can't say I didn't give you some good grandsons. And of course they'd be good no matter what they did or what they looked like. But in terms of what he needs, like having a little grandson who says, will you play catch in the backyard with me?

You know, we're both lucky that we have kids who have opportunities to be other people besides athletes. Like where I live, you can [00:34:00] do fencing, you know, you can do like this live action role play game. Like you can do a million different things.

And you know, I know there's other parts of the country where this is like, all you have, you know, and if you aren't a star, like what are you gonna be? And so that's that sense of like relief and guilt, you know, that I'm glad they got to be this like, mainstream kid, you know?

And it is only through good luck. And we had this weird experience last year. I wrote about this on my website. There's this dad who is kind of a drunk and weird guy. And I didn't go to my younger son's, a lot of his baseball games and practices due to just not wanting to, honestly.

And this guy asked my husband, this coach, if we were getting divorced, because that was the only reason why he could imagine why I didn't come to the games.

Quinn: He actually asked that question?

Claire: Yeah. He said he was splitting up, like, where's Claire been? So anyway this dad told my dad actually that he wished my son James was his son because James has this [00:35:00] hustle.

And that was not a compliment to me. Like I said, this hustle thing is like inborn, you know, it's either a kid wants to grind it out or does not. And I was like, don't say that about your own kid. Your kid is your kid. And kids don't wanna hustle.

Quinn: That's so fucking dark.

Claire: Yeah, exactly. I was like, first of all, don't associate yourself with my kid, and enjoy your kid. Enjoy the fact that your kid wants to play baseball with you. Period.

Quinn: If I'm watching, so, they were asking about good sports movies and now you got, Remember The Titans. Amazing, like all these different ones, right? And Miracle is really great. And there's a moment where the coach is like, we're running sprints for the rest of the night, right? But these kids are like 17, you know, and this is very much what they've signed up for.

Like they have worked so hard to get to the Olympic team to do this and this. That's the deal, you know? But to me, and again, like this is fighting some real instincts in me. Not to say like I'm a monster, but like I could be like a [00:36:00] light monster is you know, when we were out having a catch last night and we're running back and forth, instead of just throwing him ground balls, I'm throwing him to the side and he's running back and he's like, I'm tired. But this kid is also like at his happiest when he is basically a golden retriever and I know that about him. And so what I'm trying to do is walk the line of embracing that and he's fallen on the ground and doing all that and having fun. Instead of jumping over that line and being like, why aren't you going faster?

Let's do 20 more. You fucked that one up, which is really prevalent and it's not great. And like you said, I wish he was my son is like, there's so much going on underneath there. And I just, I look man, therapy's great. My kids are already gonna go to therapy. I'm trying not to add to that fucking list,

It can be the same in music or theater or whatever.

And but like you're saying, the mainstream thing, like it's part of why, like I push and I'm glad I had like music and not just sports where it can be just about the art and enjoy, but it's why I also push like Dungeons and Dragons, like it costs nothing,

It's [00:37:00] mostly offline if you want it to. It's like comradery and this and this. There's no stakes, you know? There there's gotta be stuff like that, man.

Claire: Yeah. You know, it's funny, when we were in Mexico City, we saw a Lucha Libre match and I mean, it's pro wrestling. Have you ever been to like a pro wrestling match in real life? And so it's so campy. Like the part of me that loves like Drag Race, I'm like, oh, this is so close to just being super gay.

Quinn: So close.

Claire: Yeah. And you know, you choose the bad guy or the good guy, but they're all wearing sparkles and you know, and parading around.

It was just so funny because my younger son was so into it and booing and thumbs down and and my older kid was like, I'm just kind of embarrassed of James right now 'cause of like how into it he was.

But I was like, there's literally an entire stadium of people and not only that, but in Mexico City, I guess it's like very normal that's your therapy that you take whatever bullshit you've had all week and then you throw it out and you yell and scream. But having a younger [00:38:00] brother, I also was like I understand your brother is there to embarrass you, even if he's actually being the most mainstream kid, so brother where James is cheering for the good guys and then Paul, you know, was the cheering for the bad guys.

Quinn: God that is like printed out of a fucking book.

Claire: I know. And I was straight for the bad guys too 'cause I just thought they were like funnier. But anyway, going back to coaching, it's just interesting the different ways that you can be a good coach 'cause part of what was interesting or just the universe feeling very inherently fair. Was that the year before Paul's championship season last year, his team lost every single game, I wanna say. So I was like, sometimes the world works out, you know? But he had a coach who was very positive.

And at one point the kids I think were beating a team and you know, like hassling them a little bit and their coach was like, stop it. Shut up. Like, stop being like that. and then for football this last year what I really liked about his football coach is how well he communicated.

Like after every single practice sent out these like bullets of here's what we're doing, here's what's coming up, here's what you've gotta get. Like for some reason, once a week, the [00:39:00] kids got fed after Thursday practices and they didn't clean up. And the coach was like, if they don't clean up next time, we're not doing this anymore.

And I was like, this is like half of it, honestly. It's just feeling like the guy is taking the time to communicate with us clearly. But my friend had a kid who quit baseball 'cause the coach was such a hard ass and you know, I've seen this coach in action and you hate even playing him because he is yelling at his own kids so hard that it just makes you cringe, you know?

So anyway, it is interesting and sweet to see like good coaches in action who don't seem to be like, reliving their own bullshit, you know?

Quinn: 1000%. They're clearly doing it for like the objective, obviously subjective in a lot of ways, but like objective love of the game and the love of like youth activity, even not sports and coaching and these children growing up and they're making like 17,000 dollars to do this. They're probably a math teacher or someone who's like, does someone know how to coach football?

Right? Can we get someone to do this? And you either get the guys that are assholes or like still [00:40:00] holding onto something and they ruin it for all the kids or someone else. And they're involved in some way. And I fully agree with you, and I would fully be the coach who's sending out the emails, this is what we're working on as people, and I want them to be young citizens first.

And if they don't clean up this and this, and like, I'm just like, again, trying to have more of the empathy of not for the asshole coaches, but if they do go above and beyond at all to be like they legitimately have no reason to go above and beyond.

This is in their off time. This is purely for love of the game. This is this and this. And then I take it out on my kids.

Claire: I told you this over text, but the story just made me laugh so hard at the boys' volleyball game. I was sitting next to a dad who like does a lot of basketball coaching. He coached the girls' seventh grade basketball team. They were so dominant and they lost like a heartbreaker, the championship, and they were all crying.

And I was like, you guys earned those tears, honestly. But we watched a boy jump away from a slam that came his way and he said, that kid, I coached him in basketball and he clearly did not wanna be playing. I haven't seen a kid not wanna play less. And he talked about how this [00:41:00] kid, part of his approach to playing basketball was to play with his hands in his pockets and the kid's dad kept yelling on the sidelines to take your hands out of your pockets.

Quinn: Which is making it so much worse.

Claire: Oh, it made me laugh so hard 'cause it's so identifiable like my kid Paul loves to chat on the sidelines and chit chat and goof around. You know, but the fact that this dad was saying this with a sense of humor, you know, and wasn't lamenting that this kid was a loser or, you know, like value add nothing.

You know, I just found it so charming. Like he sees all these kids. He appreciates all these kids for all that they have to offer.

Quinn: Like what is he gonna be a pro athlete? No, of course not, make this time nice for them. And hopefully they've learned some shit and maybe they'll win something, but like they're so young,

Claire: I wanna talk a little bit about travel sports, which my kids again are not into. And this is purely selfish and to anyone listening, I think it's very valid to choose your kid's sports based on what you wanna deal with. Like we got outta soccer 'cause no, don't be mad at me. I just don't care about soccer.

And I was like, I don't wanna [00:42:00] stand around on Sundays, but a lot of the kids in my son's world do travel baseball and he's not an elite or interested enough to play travel, but like his friend is. And he kind of got lightly recruited to try out. And my girlfriend, who is a Witch, on the one hand was like, oh shit, I don't wanna do travel.

But also it's her kid. So she let him try out and he didn't make it. And he was sobbing in his bed and she had these, you know, competing feelings of being relieved that he didn't make travel and then heartbroken for him. And then against her better judgment was emailing the coach about what can he work on, you know? And I think she was hoping he would say sleep more, eat more smile. And he was like, well you could get a, you know, a speed timer and have him improve his running to first base and he could do this and that.

Anyway, all this is to say is I interviewed for my newsletter a couple years ago this woman Linda Flanagan, she wrote a book called Take Back The Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids' Sports and it's really [00:43:00] interesting and one of the main takeaways that I got from that book is that parents whose kids did very elite high school sports and lower, said that in the end it didn't matter that they kind of wished they had put in less time and effort.

Quinn: The parents wish they'd put in less time and effort?

Claire: Yeah they were like, that was not necessary.

Quinn: The nature of, so let's do swimming for example. That's sort of been our predominant thing for the past few months 'cause it's winter, so generally runs like mid-fall to early spring. And then depending on how you're doing, like you can keep going, like championships, whatever you qualify for. So we don't have a big fancy pool in town. There's a bunch of smaller ones, but it's not really the capacity to hold like a meet of a few hundred kids. Fine. It's annoying for a thousand reasons, but it's fine. So we're going to, is it travel? Sure. But it's out of necessity 'cause you can't just, you know, these things cost a lot.

So we're going to Richmond. Just under an hour, sometimes a Hampton one, 25 minutes, something like that. And there's meets like [00:44:00] every, I would say, two or three weeks, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. And you don't have to do 'em all. You do need to do some and the kids wanna do it 'cause it's a social thing. But as much as I enjoy watching them see maybe the fruits of their labor, I've made clear to them that, and I'm always really annoying about this and I yell at the grandma's about it and everyone, which is we got a whole machine going here. If we commit to this, I am not getting any chores done this weekend. We're not doing any of mom's stuff. There are things we have to say no to 'cause we are going to this and if it's Richmond still an hour, like we'll go back and forth or whatever. And there's different sessions, but it's a lot of time and we're very proud of you. We're happy to support you, but you have to understand like we cannot do them all is the point.

But then there's also things like, objectively, subjectively, there's this one place where they took an old mall, which more places truly need to do this. They turned part of it into a pool, into a competitive pool.

Great reuse of it. Now they're doing apartments in different places and all this. [00:45:00] Awesome. So glad they did that. It is such a shitty experience for parents 'cause it's basically a basement.

And we did it twice and my kids will be like, Hey, how come my friends are going to this meet? I'm like, I'm not going, I'm not doing that.

Like I'm not driving an hour to, it's terrible. The other one's like the Taj Mahal compared to this. But it's a lot. And again, like I've kind of set my mind on that 'cause it's logistically outta necessity. But same thing when it comes to like, should they try out for this? I think the travel baseball team's called like The Revolution 'cause we're in Williamsburg. Whatever. It's just a can of worms. Are my kids gonna make it? Probably not. Which is, like you said, good and bad. Not bad.

Claire: No, there's trade offs.

Quinn: But there are trade offs. And again, like my middle girl she stopped swimming for a while. Just didn't wanna do it.

Whatever. Great. She starts doing the ninja thing. She's only had two competitions in her whole existence, in the past like year and a half, whatever. And she had one on a Saturday. And the boys were like, we're gonna go, but we're kind of, you know, lollygagging going out the door.

And I'm like, she [00:46:00] has come to every one of your dumb swim meets and watches every practice and like sort of plays on the playground, but is also like, I wanna watch Oliver bat. I'm like, you're going with pompoms on.

One 'cause that's what we do. Two, it's right down the street and three like in a few years you're all gonna be doing so much different shit.

We're not gonna be able to all go to each other's things but know that yeah, you're not going to your friend's house today. We're going to cheer for her 'cause some of it is zero sum. So I dunno. That's my way of contextualizing do we do travel? I think on the whole societal wise, it's a nightmare because it takes so many kids out of it and talented kids but also I don't know, I just sometimes need Sundays where I'm not.

Claire: I mean, you just brought up like also the kind of stuff around sports too. My husband was kind of interested in the kids maybe getting into hockey because he was into hockey a little bit and then the pandemic happened and we were like that doesn't matter. And I also was like, I was about hockey the way I was about football, where I was like, you wanna do that?

You own that. But like the household management that ends up coming down on you with certain sports, and I'm [00:47:00] kind of amazed that you have three vegetarian kids because there's no meal planning and home cooked meals with these volleyball matches that we have now that are like five, six, and seven.

That's what fast food was invented for, was for, you know, going out after a game. Like that's such a dumb little thing, but yeah, you can't make dinner and also go to various, you know?

Quinn: Oh, fuck no. And a lot of times I don't, but by the way, either one of the grandmas helps with it, but usually honestly, they're helping with the driving 'cause I truly cannot be in three places at once. And again, so much of Dana's work is three hours behind. Like it's still two o'clock where her people are. But we do a ton of leftovers. Like I will both make things that will last, but also we do a lot of just deconstructed share plates and deconstruct in the sense of like, I'm just pulling shit outta the fridge. I'm putting 12 things on the table and we buy a lot of the same stuff, a lot of fresh stuff, whatever packaged stuff.

I just go, this is dinner. It's not a like a meal, like you would prefer, some of your kids, but like where do you see that? I have time for that. I'm sorry. It's like when they're [00:48:00] like, okay, great. We went to our meet all weekend, 36 hours. How come I don't have clean pants? I'm like, I don't know. Why don't you think about that for a minute?

Claire: Oh God.

Quinn: When would you have liked me to have done that?

Claire: The football in particular, the accessories with football, like between the helmet and the baby mouth guard and the pads and then the long jersey and the pants. And the pants for some reason come with this long shoestring drawstring thing and then the long socks.

Quinn: This is what's so great about swimming Speedo, which they forget. I'm like, what is in your fucking bag?

Claire: Here is a big difference between America and other countries. When we were in Mexico, my son brought goggles to swim in the hotel pool and he left them behind one day and we asked Lost and Found if they had 'em, and it was like getting a hostage out of Iran basically to get these goggles back, I had to provide an ID and sign and describe these goggles. Meanwhile, at my parents' golf club pool, there's like a bucket full of left behind goggles that kids leave behind. And I was like, wow, we are a shitty country with, I mean not for long 'cause your goggles are gonna cost [00:49:00] $40 now, but I was like, oh, this is a country where people like value their belongings.

Quinn: So weird. Instead of I need a new one of these. Why do you, why? You have a little note here about your own sports participation and extracurriculars and you said Claire's phasing out guitar classes soon, since sports will be too much. Are you saying you're sacrificing your guitar stuff because their things are gonna be too much? And how do you feel about that?

Claire: Yeah, I mean, you know, sacrifice makes it sound like it's like a real, like I'm giving up my sleep.

Quinn: I do honestly believe like every one of these little hobbies that we can hold onto like matters.

Claire: Well, as I've gotten older, I have identified the little things I can do for myself and they can be quite seasonal. And like in the summer, I decided a couple years ago, I'm gonna go to the driving range once a week and take a couple golf lessons to get a little bit better. And I have played golf with my kids and my dad, speaking of like making good grandkids and so that all kind of comes together, right?

Like we can play golf [00:50:00] together and enjoy it and sort of know functionally what to do. And then meanwhile, my son also plays guitar, so we can kind of sometimes bond where I can say oh, that sounds like you've come along. And in a certain way it's good to take breaks from things like, I love guitar in that it is very fun for me and we're working on the White Album right now, so it's fun to sing Blackbird and Julia last night.

But you know, also there's a little pain in the ass element of getting out downtown at night. But anyway, yeah it gets better, but it really is when you are a newer parent and your kid's sports schedule, it truly comes landing on your head. And when your kids are younger, I think, and you feel compelled to stand there and be there in case of an emergency or disaster or emotional disaster.

There is so much more boredom and standing around and it gets so much better when the competition is more fun to watch or you can simply drop them off and not have to worry about it or even just sit in your car. So, it's fine. I don't, I'm not, I've made my peace with it. This is fine. Dog sitting in the fire, you know, it's all right. And volleyball, I [00:51:00] do enjoy watching. I played volleyball. I can appreciate it, it's really cool to see the kids get better at it. So, you know, I was just telling my brother who doesn't have kids 'cause he and his husband had decided not to have kids.

And I said, you know, having kids really sucks if you're someone who hates doing things that you don't wanna do.

Quinn: Yeah,

Claire: So when the things you don't wanna do get marginally better, you're like, oh my God, this is great. This is amazing.

Quinn: It really does. Like you said, that first year of kid pitch is so brutal. It's so fucking brutal. And baseball really is like my favorite game and I'm the guy who's like, even if nothing's happening so much is happening, in the brains and running things, it's brutal. So you're right. When it gets better, you're like, oh, this is fun.

This is fun. But I just wanna make sure you've still got something for you.

Claire: Oh, and the reason I got back into golf was because I took the kids to the batting cages. Again, this is like a new level of leveling up or I guess on another planet you could judge me for not observing while my kid has a ball hurled towards his head at 40 miles an hour, but I [00:52:00] was like, he has a helmet on and there's some 13-year-old observing the cages.

But I went and hit balls like while they were hitting balls, you know, and I was like, oh, you know what? This is like good. This feels nice. I'm not just sitting here waiting for them, watching them swing and miss over and over again so I can pump 15 more dollars into the machine. So, you know, and another thing, this is not related at all, but like I have come to appreciate playing catch with my kids has been good for my reflexes.

There have been so many times where like something has fallen and I've caught it and I'm like, this is 'cause of them and their stupid baseball that I could, you know, nab this. But yeah. What have you had to say no to 'cause of your kids' sports or you are just happy to be there?

Quinn: I have this weird thing where I've realized, again, we had three under three for a while and then that just continued the way it continued and I was in like really good shape for a lot of that pre-Covid, and now I am, I'm not, and a big part of the reason is I have a completely different job than I did before.

I was mostly doing screenwriting and philanthropic and like investing stuff before, [00:53:00] which was like, yeah, you can spend three hours at the gym thinking about the pages you're gonna write and you get two emails a week. It is a very different thing now and that's great and I'm happy about that.

So I'm trying to make more time for just that 'cause I do still like really enjoy being in really good shape. There's other things, like I try to have little projects. I've had, you know, I try to make a little 20 minute family video comprised of all the video Dana and I take from every year. I think I'm like six years behind on that because it's just like when do I get a day to just do that. It's not something I'm interested in doing in five minute chunks necessarily. I like to say I like to play video games. I played like NHL 95, you know, I don't have time for this shit now. They're also complicated. I have a game that just came out that I love, Civilization. The seventh one just came out, so excited. I haven't touched it.

Claire: Do you game with your kids?

Quinn: No, we don't do a lot of screen stuff. Like sometimes I'll challenge them in Mario Kart, but again, like I'm a fucking hypocrite about it, you know?

I would like to, and like I showed 'em Civilization and it's one of those games where you're like, I'll play for five [00:54:00] minutes at eight o'clock and you look up at four in the morning. And that's fine. There's definitely worse ways to go than are you achieving the cultural goals in this game?

But yeah there's always, I mean, I often have the Alexander Hamilton, like, why do you write like you're running outta time, kind of thing.

Cause I have so many things I feel like I should be doing every day that I don't get to, things I do actually get to. And then things like I want to get to, which are always at the bottom of the list. But yeah, I don't know. So I would guess like everything, but like you, I'm increasingly okay with more of it.

Claire: Real big picture question. What do you think is the point of kid sports? Like, why are we doing this?

Quinn: To me, and I'm extremely, this is such a rare case. Like again, they are swimming for my coach who happened to be not the hardest ass coach, every 15 years there's like an Olympian, puts out good kids. He holds 'em responsible, they're great. He makes not just like good individual kids, but like good teammates. I am really invested in that as long as they wanna do it. [00:55:00] Only because, not only because, but in a big part because I know like, they're getting a lot of life lesson kind of stuff out there. He's like, you're gonna cheer for your team, you know, you're gonna do this, we're gonna do the fun stuff and all that. It's also a little bit like, see what you're made of at every stage and how your body's changing and are you willing to rise to the occasion? But also little things where I like them to investigate themselves, you know?

So, I don't know. I feel like you can get a lot of that stuff out of it. Of course, again, can also be toxic. But I don't know. I dunno. All the same stuff. Like why go out for the musical? Maybe it'll be fun. Maybe there's a cute girl or a cute guy or whatever. Or [00:56:00] maybe you actually like to sing after all these years of blasting music at all.

I'm like, I don't know. Go see, it flies by. And for how long do any of us and especially kids get the don't be afraid to make a mistake? 'cause it ends pretty quickly and then everyone's sorry, you can't go to college now.

Claire: Well, especially having us, lived through, had kids through Covid, you know, and I felt this way about Major League baseball even where you're like, well, you don't really miss it till it's gone, until you can't do it. Even if you lose every single game, just the fact that you can't share a bat, you know, nothing is more pathetic than watching a bunch of kids play basketball with masks on, you know, like it is I mean, there are much more pathetic things than that.

But yeah I also laugh 'cause there's a TV show, I don't think it's on anymore, but AP Bio and I didn't really watch it, but I remember there was the gym teacher who said, we tire out the boys. That was his job. And I was like, don't you understand?

Quinn: I mean, I've said to many parents a few times, like the coaches will do relays at the end, or they'll make 'em run wind sprints and [00:57:00] make it competitive. I'm like, they're doing that for us. They're fully, the kids don't quite realize what is happening right now,

Claire: I wanna say one more thing that I thought this was just really interesting. I volunteer at the kids newspaper club 'cause I know my lane and I know where I shine. And I mostly I feel like clean up, you know? And sometimes I'll say what do you need?

So I don't, so they’re not bothering the teacher, but we had a woman come in who used to teach gym at the school and she was interviewed because she made the decision for the kids to wear their gym uniforms to school on gym days. Instead of changing into their gym uniform. So they interviewed her, but she happened to have three kids who were all college athletes and one who actually briefly played for the NFL.

And so after the kids are done interviewing her, I said, you know, what advice do you have for parents of student athletes? And she said, don't have them specialize. At least up until high school. Like let 'em play as much as they want, different sports. And I agree with that. I interviewed a guy, his name is Jerry Brooks, who's a principal, and he talked about not having your kids put all their eggs in one basket because if travel baseball is all they have and then they hurt [00:58:00] themselves or they decide they don't like it anymore and all of their friends are wrapped up in this one activity like you're SOL.

I know I say that of course, again, selfishly, because I don't wanna do travel sports myself, but you know, I think for parents out there who might be worrying like, am I not giving my kid all the opportunity in the world by not paying for baseball camp and you know, going to Cooperstown for a week and all of that stuff they'll probably be okay.

Quinn: A hundred percent. And also unfortunately, like so many kids futures and parents futures are tied up, is my kid gonna get a scholarship for this thing? Because the way this place works or doesn't work, which is a shit show. So you feel all these pressures to do it 'cause immediately you're like, what can she do with this that will help on this and this? And it's like, what the fuck are we doing? Not fucking great.

So yeah, both of those things are true. What the fuck is she gonna do, ninja?

Claire: She might be a professional ninja.

Quinn: Sure, great. But I'm like, have fun, swing around. Who cares? She's [00:59:00] swinging from the rooftop. She eats shit so hard, like 30 times a class. That's gotta be pretty good for something and then she has to get back up.