Was anyone else not ferried around as a child to various clubs?

[Imgonnaleaveyou58]

I have one sibling and we were driven to a trampolining club one evening a week by our parents, which we appreciated. These days kids seem to have eye-wateringly expensive hobbies on 4 or 5 evenings a week which they're driven all over the place for? It's important to partake in hobbies and sporting activities but I think the kids are spoilt tbh.

No kid needs to be taken to clubs every single night of the week, they're allowed to be bored/at home/entertain themselves sometimes and parents are allowed to spend money on themselves and do things for them.
I just think it's all gone mad.

I’m your age OP and we did trampolining, brownies, swimming, a musical instrument and when I got to secondary I did school clubs like art, tennis etc

Lots of my friends did ballet and piano. Tap dancing, etc

The boys all did football. And nearly all had swimming lessons. Seems the same then as it is now.

My mum really struggled and had no money for extras so I couldn’t join the gymnastics club even though I was naturally pretty good at it. I also wasn’t allowed to invite friends back to mine so without being able to reciprocate, friends tend to drop you. ☹️

Consequently, I’ve done my best to support my kids to do the activities they wanted to do. Youngest is into music and I’m paying for lessons and buying quality instruments as birthday and Christmas gifts. We also host the band practising at ours very regularly. 😁

I went to Brownies and Sunday School, they were in the village I lived in so we walked. When I was in secondary school we used to catch a bus to the next village and walk the rest of the way to the swimming pool. Never ferried around anywhere.

I played in the school band and had music lessons at school. I played a big instrument so I had to carry it to and fro on band and lesson days. Parents refused to help. School was fab in trying everything to support me as long as possible but ultimately I had to give it up and I also was unable to take up a place in the local youth orchestra because there just wasn't public transport available for that journey. I am still a bit salty about that. Neither parent ever came to watch me play, either in school concerts, or local competitions or pageants. My mum had grade 8 piano, and claimed she resented having to learn because her mum forced her to, but she refused to support me when I chose to do a hobby I loved. They were equally awkward with my brother any any attempts he made to have hobbies.

I learnt a instrument for a year with school so wasn't too expensive. However I had to share the instrument with my older sibling who had been learning a lot longer and was doing grade exams. Sibling didn't like me using the instrument and we couldn't afford another so my parents stopped my lessons.
It was very much that my older siblings did the clubs, football,athletics swimming brownies. By the time I came along things were different so no clubs for me. I briefly did horse riding every other week or once a month but again they stopped paying for it. They wouldn't let me walk there alone to help out for free. So I just gave up with clubs. I did art and singing at home because that required no ongoing money or input from anyone. My friends had horses but I would of needed a lift so that wasn't going to happen.

My children need down time after school so we don't do many clubs but if they've shown a interest we always try stuff. Even if we can't afford weekly clubs we will try and support in whatever ways we can to make it happen in some capacity.

My love for horses is still strong today. I'm very aware that my life is flying before my eyes so I'm conscious of making hobbies for me a priority. Just trying to also facilitate my children along side. What's the point of life if we can't all have some joy!

I grew up in Poland. We just played on the streets (badminton, football, etc.), rode bikes all the time with other kids, swam in every puddle we could find in the summer, playing 'shop' and 'family' with our neighbours in the garden and rode skis and sleighs in snowy winters and skidded on frozen ponds. Parents were rather uninvolved. My nephews back there still have this freedom and only go to football twice a week. But me and my DH have put our kids to a variety of clubs as is the think here in the UK. My older son's friends are not interested to hang out or ride bikes. They'd rather sit in their bedrooms with their faces glued to a phone screen.

My parents lived and died without owning a car, so ferrying around was never an option 😅 Nor was anything remotely expensive. I was in the Brownies and the Girl Guides, mum would walk me to Brownies, I walked to Guides on my own. I did tap, ballet and majorettes for a while but the costumes were hard for them to afford, so I gave it up.

We had bikes, roller skates, balls, toys. We were fine.

Such is life. They did their best, I grew up, worked, travelled, took up horse riding in my 20s and many other hobbies as time has gone on, and have had an interesting and fulfilling life.

My mum was the other end of the scale and wouldn't put herself out for me or my brother at all.

E.g. we went to school in the town mum worked and got up at the crack of dawn to get the bus because mum didn't want to drive us and arrive at work half an hour early. This added an extra hour to our day.

She wouldn't let me help out with the school play because she didn't want me getting the bus home at night... but didn't want to collect me (15min drive).

I collected aluminum cans for recycling to get £££ and she refused to drive me and the bags of cans we had collected. Getting a bus with several bin bags was impossible.

And the list goes on.

Now, I let my children be in clubs and I will put myself out... to a point. I do draw a line (I.e they do several clubs and they asked to do another and I said no due to cost/logistics).

It's not safe to play in the streets any more because of all the parents ferrying their children to clubs. How ironic.

I don't think you can 'spoil' a child with too much attention/ too many opportunities to try things, if they are that way inclined. It's great that kids have opportunities to try things... as long as the kids are the ones wanting to do it.

If it's the parents being pushy then that's another thing entirely.

Kids need rest and also the opportunity to be bored and amuse themselves as well. They don't always need to be occupied and 'bettering themselves'. They should be able to enjoy their childhood.

Sorry didn't read the whole thread, but I agree with you OP. Unless a child is mad about a hobby or does a sport they love, I think more than about 3 clubs a week is just too much for anyone. I had a friend whose DC averaged 6 after school activities a week (primary school, all very different activities), most chosen by the parent. When I asked whether DC is not tired from having school then instrument then sport in one day, back to back, she did not understand the question! Dinners were always rushed too.

As with most things there is a balance, a few things are probably good if DC enjoys them, tries something new, but I do think some parents think they are curating greatness by scheduling their kid's every living moment. Makes me so sad for the kids. At that age I just liked my legos and still managed to have plenty of hobbies.

I did brownies and that was it

I’m a mother of a little girl and she is doing dance lessons twice a week and after Christmas will be doing swimming. As a parent I don’t mind ferrying my child around to the classes I want her to take part in. I would much prefer to do that and her have hobbies and things to do and be good at than not. My friend has been a dancer for 15 years and is still dancing at 21 why would I take that from my child just because it’s driving her around

I’m Gen X, we did everything for ourselves! I remember at junior school coming home from school the short cut which was across wobbly stones over a pretty fast, deep stream … parents didn’t realise of course! We also walked home in gaggles from infants and junior school,
it was well over a mile

If i couldn’t walk myself there or cycle i couldn’t go. And that was even to things like Brownies at the age of 5

I think it’s for the individual parent to decide what they want to do for their child and how much they do and want their child to do. Not you someone sat on a forum telling us what our child does and doesn’t need If my child was happy and had opportunities I would take her somewhere every single day.

growing up in the 60s as the youngest child my needs and wants were right at the bottom of the pile. i used to walk the 2 miles each way to the local swimming pool at the weekend because I liked swimming. I joined brownies but mum wouldnt take me and so was unable to go when the nights got darker and had to give up. same with guides. i played out in the street a lot and over the fields with friends. I tried to take up an instrument at senior school, mum wouldnt have it in the house and practicing in the garden shed was ok until it got cold. I basically had no hobbies and no after school clubs ever. small wonder I left home at 18. for my own kids it was 3 hobbies a week. 1 was in the home (music teacher came in) and 2 were their choice. worked well because we were self employed. I have friends now with younger kids who have a club every night and no time for home work. then they wonder why they fail their gcses.

I’m mid 40s. Between us at various times my sisters and I had music lessons (different instruments), pony club, netball, football, brownies, theatre, volleyball, swimming.

We lived out of town and I remember my mum driving me to 6.30am volleyball training before school once a week and she and other parents took turns driving the team a 3 hr round journey to matches once a week.

So yes, we were ferried!

It's okay, I play an instrument now! I started one last year!

It was also an unfortunate mindset for the time, I think, because my parents genuinely thought the only way to be successful was to study ALL THE TIME. Like, anything that wasn't leading directly to the goal of getting good grades and then getting a good job was a waste of time. But by the time I was starting to enter the workforce in the mid 2010s, the job market attitude had really changed to "we want well rounded people" and I wasn't well rounded. I was just... grades.

I'd rather they were at clubs than on screens

No - most children weren't ferried to activities, in the kind of circles my family moved in back in the 70s/80s.

Many things I remember people doing - Brownies/Guides/Majorettes - were local and walkable. Dancing classes were popular - not something I did so I don't know how people got to them. Sports tended to have relatively few people who were particularly talented at a particular sport going to coaching or playing in teams, rather being than something lots of people did in a formal setting.

I had swimming lessons for a couple of years but I walked to the baths, which were in town. I had music lessons for several years but again, very local to me - about 15 mins walk. We didn't have a car at all in early childhood and then we only had one car which my dad used, so there wasn't a car available to ferry my sister and me about.

Most households were one-car households in that era, in my demographic - I remember being quite impressed learning that a friend's parents had a car each, her dad had a company car and her mum had a 'runaround' - I imagined they must be very well-off.

There were fewer cars on the road so 'playing out' on the street was safer - possibly less awareness of danger too - 'playing out' was just what people did, I'm not aware of anyone in my area coming to harm - parents would give you boundaries as to how far and where you could roam to.

It might have been different for more upper-middle class households - we were in a working class/lower middle class demographic.

I grew up in the 70s and 80s in a dirt poor, working class - and frankly shitty, abusive- household. Parents had no car and no interest in extra curricular enrichment activities. I was musical, singing and playing violin in a county choir/orchestra (thanks to free school music lessons). The County bus picked us up from, and dropped us back at school. Without the bus service, I wouldn't have been able to go (no spare money for public transport). I did Bronze D of E courtesy of my best friend's dad driving us to and from the core activities (and me having to put up with his mildly uncomfortable behaviour in the car).

Needless to say, I've made sure my kids have done as many extra curricular activities as they have had the energy and appetite for until they said they didn't want to do them anymore. I don't drive, so we've used public transport, and that's been fine. I wanted them to have opportunities, but nothing was forced on them, and they stopped doing them when they wanted to, except for swimming to a high level, which I see as a life skill (and luckily they enjoyed it).

Both of them are confident older teens now who can come and go under their own steam for the most part. They both have continued some of the hobbies; and one got a very well paid, part time job plus a teaching qualification off the back of one of the activities I took them to, so it's really paid off.

Oh and other thing! (Sorry, it's got me started now!!!) Did anyone else whose parents refused any clubs or extra-curriculars simultaneously talk about how "clever" your friends were for being able to play instruments or draw beautifully or just for seeming to know a lot about the world? My parents still don't see the connection between a wide skillset and world view and actually... doing stuff.

I can relate to this. My father wasn't interested in my musical abilities, but he was sports mad, and had competed himself as a young man at quite a high level (or so he said). He was disgusted by our lack of sporting prowess, but never seemed to compute he actually had to put some effort in allowing us to go to clubs to develop skills and travel to meets. I taught myself to swim properly once I got to university, and became really rather good at it. He was very proud of this, but his pride really riled me up.

Again it's not 'driven to an expensive hobby 5 nights a week' v 'sitting on a screen all day'. I do think the mindset of 'I will drive my child anywhere they want wherever they want' is going to make things difficult later in life when they struggle with being told 'no' as a result.

To me its a bit of a new thing. I'm 41. Growing up, some boys did football or cubs and some girls did brownies or dance. All local in church halls or in the school hall or at the local recreation ground. All low cost and for fun really.

I was driven to guides once a week but we lived in an isolated place. When I was a child living in a town we walked everywhere or took the bus (swimming lessons, brownies, shopping etc).
Always remember walking a mile and a half into town with my grandad to get his shopping.
Then the bus back