Aibu to think skiing is not an essential skill!

[Clickoclock]

My brother & his wife hate skiing but bring the kids once sometimes twice a year as they think it's an essential skill for their children to learn.. aibu to think this is ridiculous & it will never, ever come in useful in adult life!

Dump the DH and the DCs www.pilaski.co.uk/images/PDF/Ladies-Week.pdf

Is that really a thing, company ski trips? I can imagine it would have been quite embarrassing as a non skier & you literally have to learn on your feet.

It's actually one of my big regrets that I couldn't afford to try skiing and give my kids that experience. The scenery, the food, the skill itself are so appealing to me but my husband hates snow! Covid interrupted the school ski trips for two of my dc but hopefully my youngest dc14 will get to go on the trip soon. I think she'd be awesome on the slopes!

Saves all the people who didn’t drown though, don’t it

Obviously is not essential but depending on circles your child will move in its of benefit. I didn’t ski until I was 40 plus and have never really mastered it. It’s quite dispiriting being the eternal shit one when the group who skiied as teens / young adults whizz down the slopes.

We relied on school trips for ours to learn which hasn’t worked out due to covid cancellations and the trip dd2 finally went on was quite rubbish as the school understandably tried to keep costs down but went too far.

It’s one of those things that having exposure helps with lots of things later. It’s great for health and fitness- coordination, balance, so a great skill for DC to have. It’s like learning a language, or playing an instrument. Strictly speaking not essential, yet actually a great opportunity.

It’s a bit like culture- museums, theatre, art galleries, posh restaurants. It’s helpful to know how to manage the environment in case you want or need to frequent them later.

Summer clubs like PGL where they do a range of activities are similar. They get confidence at learning new skills, try out things they may turn out to be awesome at, and so on.

Which is why water safety is the actual important bit. How to recognise danger, how to float, knowing your limits etc. Knowing butterfly or accurate breathing in front crawl won't save you.

I'd have loved to have learnt to ski just so I could! My partner snowboards and even after years of not going just picks it up.
I'm scared of trying now, nearly 50 in case I hurt myself and I'm not dexterous at the best of times. I think learning young you don't have those worries, I certainly didn't when I horse rode as a child, I was fearless.

I think it depends what circles you move in.

I know some people who are quite wealthy/ upper class who would be shocked to find someone couldn't ski or sail.

That's not my background at all, but it is the case for some people, and I guess if you have certain aspirations for your kids you might want to make sure they learn.

I just wanted others opinions as my brother has often stated skiing is essential for his kids but can never answer why exactly it is especially as he & his wife don't enjoy it!

Well it is if you want your whole social life to revolve around people who ski.

Otherwise no. I have never been, it doesn't appeal at all, I hate the snow. I don't socialise with anyone who goes either.

Sounds like you need some hobbies of your own 😁

It has cachet in some social circles. I suppose they want their children to fit in with the sort of people who regard going skiing every year as natural. Personally I think it’s ridiculous, the fuss people make about a wildly expensive but essentially silly hobby that is basically just repeatedly sliding down a slope, while wearing special clothes. But people use it as a way of demonstrating how much spare money they’ve got.

And what do you plan on doing with this information?

Thing is, DS became friendly with a lad whose whole family went skiing regularly. They’d have taken DS with them, and with hindsight we should have invested in the gear so he could go.

It’s a string to your bow that’s hard to acquire later.

However I bet they enjoy it more than they are saying. Maybe it’s the skiing culture/environment they like rather than the sport.

It's not a hobby of his as he & his wife hate it! They go as they think it's essential for their kids to be able to ski.
I have lots of hobbies, ones I actually enjoy not forcing myself to take part in for my dcs benefit.

Why does she need to "do" anything with it? It’s perfectly reasonable to just want to hear other people's thoughts on the subject.

This is another instance of the UK’s aspirational oddities about social class and ‘fitting in’, like that thread about how to make your children able to move easily in UC and UMC circles.

I’m a prole who went to Oxford. I have many UC friends, including some who have family chalets in the Swiss alps, and other than a couple of deeply unenjoyable novice efforts, I’ve never ski’ed. It’s never for a moment stopped me being friends with enthusiastic lifelong skiers. I wouldn’t go on holiday with them to one of those charmless, purpose-built resorts where there’s nothing to do but ski, but the nice thing about staying in friends’ houses is that they’re usually somewhere with lots of non-wintersports-related things to do.

There’s something really depressing about the aspirational dragging their children to the ROH and to ski school so they can fit in with possible ‘posh friends ’.

I actually have found the answers very interesting & informative. I'm going to do nothing with the info but it's helping me understand why db & sil think skiing is essential.

So I can see both sides here. On the one hand strictly speaking, it isn’t an essential skill. However, learning lots of physical skills when young changes how you are as an adult - when someone invites you on a holiday or outing which involves a physical challenge you’re more likely to feel confident you can cope, and give things a go. I don’t think it’s just about class - I think it’s about physical confidence as well - and skiing is just one of the things you do in winter to attain that. And physical confidence is valuable.

Absolutely vital if your main aspiration for your children is that they grow up rubbing shoulders with the wealthy trust-fund set and are accepted as one of them, and marry within that set. Kate Middleton might never have made it to future queen status if she couldn't ski competently.

If that's not your way of judging success in life then yanbu.

I totally agree. Anyone who doesn't has clearly never seen the start of 'The Spy Who Loved Me'. James Bond would be dead if he couldn't ski. And parachute. Another essential skill.

It's strange to read that, as I have lived and worked in Switzerland for 20 years and find a completely opposite situation. 😂

I had a very bad accident skiing in my 20s and can't ski again unfortunately.

At this time of the year entire conversations in work at lunch or at the coffee station revolve around the snowfall quantity and quality, trips to stay in family apartments in Adelboden etc and subsequent invitations to join them for skiing. Christmas/New year plans for skiing, weekend plans for Skiing, Fasnacht second week holiday plans for skiing. Basically a one topic conversation for 4 months.

Most Fridays in the first quarter in my previous company my team would beg for an early start/early finish so they could head off to the Bernese Oberland for the weekend.

My two best friends are currently cross country skiing with their partners, one in Davos, one in Gstaad, two separate neighbours have driven to Austria for the week.

When my DS was in school it was a 1 week trip every year with the teachers from Primary onwards, there are even special school ski trip trains put on by SBB at certain times of the year. I'm glad he learned then when he had confidence and no fear, his girlfriends family go twice a month now and he'd miss out massively if he didnt ski.

It's not essential if you don't live in a place where skiing happens.

Do the children go to private schools?

Skiing is seen as a posh hobby and to have memories of skiing as a child shows you from a middle+ class and that your parents are posh and sophisticated. It sounds like your relatives are doing this as a form of social climbing and to enable their children to blend in with rich folks. They obviously have high aspirations for their kids.

No his kids are in state school in a grammar area & are getting tutored for 11 plus.