Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Marginalizing Activities



A friend of mine was telling me about how his daughter does *competitive cheerleading*.

Practices and meets run year-round. And a typical competition will involve leaving the house at 5am on a Saturday, driving a couple hours to the event, warm-ups, make-up and dressing, performance, lingering around all afternoon for the judges' results, before getting home at maybe 9pm.

Wow. Is that how any wage-slave really wants to spend their *day off*?

What the bleep is it even for? I mean what long-term benefits are there for training a young lady to prance around like a s*x object? For *athleticism* and *teamwork*? Give me a break!

I couldn't imagine any point in history where such child-centric, parental sacrifice was so common for the commoners.

My buddy warns me that soon, as my kids get older, that's all I'll do, shuttle them from one activity to another.

I don't think so.

My kids, even now, never lack for activity as far as I am concerned - and I kibosh just everything that's 25 minutes away.

I grew up in such a household. On weekends, everyone was running in different directions. One would bum a ride to their game. And Mom and Dad would split up, each taking another to their different activity.

Running around like this is anti-marriage, anti-family, and anti-logic.

Sports should be disorganized; they should be played as pick-up games, for fun, at the local park.

Note how most people don't read books or *learn* anything once they *graduate* from school.

I'll bet that all these organized activities, particularly sports, ruin people later in life for them. My father's generation grew up playing all sorts of games at the schoolyard; and he continued to play many sports, softball, bowling, basketball, and golf long until he was in his forties. Those adult *activities* simply don't exist anymore.

The more I think about *organization*, the more I don't like it.

(Activities, as opposed to local, organic fun....they are't really green now are they?)

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