Why are the mc & mc children more outdoorsy & sporty?

[Spaghettisavesmysoul]

Following on from the umc lifestyle thread, I noticed many posts saying they were much more outdoorsy & sporty. Skiing is nearly a pre requisite & a silent class marker! The mc kids we know can all swim very, very well, cycling loads, hike, ski, play hockey, tennis & rugby.
Why is this? Is it from the schools they attend, parental aspirations or interests? The wc class kids I know (mine included) are not that way inclined whatsoever, outdoors consists more of freeplay as opposed to sports & my boys enjoy unstructured footie with their pals...

I don't know what happened my post! But the parents & kids adore skiing, the kids have been going on ski trips since birth it seems! Other activities are French or spanish outside school & music.. All sports & activities they can use as a family & socially when they're older. Very useful as opposed to gymnastics, acro or similar..

If you want your children to be sporty you need to sign them up for multiple sports classes from tots. My Foster son came to me at 5 1/2. I got him in the water having swim lessons from week 1. He has carried on through Swimming Club and now swims for our town. He swims at least twice each week. I signed him up for cricket lessons at 6 and he has played ever since. Winter training and summer matches. He is 16 now and since 13 has played in adult team. He has cricket practice twice a week and involved at county level. He attends karate every week and now purple with white stripe belt, only brown and black left to do. He also attends Crav Maga self defence once a week. He runs around our local lake three times a week which is 2.5 km to keep his fitness up. He plays tennis, ice skates, trampolines, once a fortnight each. He uses gym equipment and is studying a Sports course. I drive him to his Sports commitment most nights and both days every weekend. I very glad he does not waste all his time gaming like too many teens.

@caringcarer it sounds like you have given him an amazing childhood & you're right they need to start early especially before they discover devices!

Ours both play rugby, cycle lots, swim twice a wee with us, go to sessions after school for various sports (dodgeball, basketball, tennis, badminton, fencing, archery & touch rugby so far). They’ve both been to dance/gymnastic/trampoline lessons in the past and they do loads of water based stuff (paddle boarding, kayaking, open water swimming, coasteering, sailing etc) as they are easily accessible. It is relatively expensive and where you live often dictates what is available/how expensive it is to access. Water sports are a good example. Our kids have wetsuits because we live by the sea and go open water swimming loads. Their cubs group do kayaking and coasteering as part of their normal cycle of activities & they can go out paddle boarding with us and loads of their friends whose families have a board. If they want to learn to surf a neighbour already offered to take the eldest for a lesson with his kids. The initial investment to buy the stuff was about £5-600 but if you didn’t live right at the coast it likely wouldn’t seem worth it and accessing private lessons for those sports is often £30-50 per session.

More space and easier access to the outdoors. It's much harder to be outdoorsy do if you are packed into a council estate miles from a decent green space/open countryside.

Also, it's all about your culture and what you've grown up doing. Dh and I both very mc. We both grew up rurally, went to beach, hiking, camping, riding as children. Not surprisingly, we still enjoy those things and we do them with our dc. Neither of us can bloody ski or play all sports to save our lives though.

But obviously, yes, sports very forced upon you in independent schools. At both our schools, we were made to play a sport at least 2 days a week after school. Again, neither of us are sporty, but certainly as a child, it wasn't optional.

That said, I don't really know any of my mc friends whose dc play sports by choice (all of us have dc in state school). That probably says more about our friends than any sort of generalisation about the middle class though! Only my more wc friends have dc who play sports or are on sports teams themselves. Again, I don't think that's generalisable, just happens to be what they're into.

Having spent a couple of hundred weekend mornings in parks by 9am, I can't deny that! One of the perks is that I can tick off exercise and something purposeful before getting home to my not-morning family!

I totally agree that Park Run is aimed at early risers! If I was going to be at my nearest ParkRun by 9am, my Saturday mornings would have to start at the same time as my weekday mornings and that’s just not going to happen! A 10am start would be so much better.

Really interesting thread, we have a very sought after selective grammar school near us, and their big thing is the performing arts, rather than sport.

I think it's definitely interesting & there's a correlation to the middle classes & sports... Even my least sporty mc friends are obsessed with their dc's sporting prowess.. Maybe not competitively as such but want them playing team sports, swimming, cycling, scooting, skiing, tennis... More trying to raise an "all rounder"!

My impression is that a lot of mc parents esp. in state schools try to recreate private school experiences i.e. language, musical instruments and sports outside school. Kids end up doing three or four activities but not just sports.

You have a point there! I think they probably save money in the process too!

Now we're in the Xmas holidays we can see it again,The outdoorsy types kept it going in the cold spells.. Lots of insta photos of winter walks & snow fun..

You are right, I am at my Iocal David Lloyd this morning and the outdoor tennis courts are just as busy as the indoor ones!

It's interesting isn't it! Where I live it's very obvious.. Funny you mention tennis courts, the ones in our local park are also fully in use.

The classic one near us last week was boys wearing shorts and having snowball fights. This was in a very very naice area of London.

Foster son good at most sports but excels at cricket, and plays at County level. Swimming and running also as he competes in Aquathlons. He is good at Archery too but can not ski as not had lessons. I do pay £40 hour for 1-1 cricket coaching though.

Money.

That's too funny! They are made of strong stuff!

Getting cold is fine if you know you're going home to a heated house and warming dinner afterwards.

so I think this is interesting because my children have the outdoorsy lifestyle but I didn’t growing up as my parents didn’t value that.

I think people do it because that is what their circle are doing and it starts young. Eg everyone I knew did baby swimming as did we. The nicer nurseries have their own outside space and then promote forest school. Both of my children could make a fire at 3. My children are much more outdoorsy than I am. Once you have proper coats, waterproofs etc it’s much easier to play outside.

I think that sort of lifestyle just then expands. Kids pick up more activities, see friends doing things like skiing or perhaps go on a pony ride and get interested because they’ve been exposed to something. I’ve never been skiing but find it’s hard at work when people talk about it and I can’t join in and gradually I’ve decided I quite fancy giving it a go. That sort of exposure is going to be much more likely in wealthier circles.

Proper waterproof clothes & boots definitely make the great outdoors more enjoyable. But money is important also to access the activities perceived as slightly elite such as sailing or skiing..

If your family do something it's likely you will too. Skiing holiday, surfing, scuba, tennis. If you expose the children to these things chances are they'll like something. Their friends may well do these things so their is a common interest. All those take money. Walking or National trust isn't expensive but again if that's what the family do then the children may do it.

Walking is not expensive, we have always done a lot. National Trust is expensive.

It's incredibly costly for some teenagers.

Life in some areas is not safe to go for a walk out of the estate, through the underpass system underneath the flyover and out into the middle of somebody else's territory.

Having been regularly dragged through national trust properties as a child, I swore never to inflict it on my children.

Just reading this thread, was in my watched threads for ages. It's true, around my area the middle class families are enjoying every second of the fine weather, biking, local playground, jogging, running, scooting, swimming.. They are all out & about. All these activities are relatively inexpensive, playground is free but it seems to be the mc families who really avail of the facilities... Just my observation.