I've talked about my two sons' diverging sports interests before. The youngest loves soccar and the oldest loves baseball. Personally I lean baseball myself. I love the sport, both watching and playing, but I do admire soccer even if I don't know very much about the game beyond the basics.
This year both of my kids are getting more into their sports of choice. My youngest joined a soccer league and my oldest a baseball one. I'm really glad to see them getting into sports. Moving, being outdoors, learning to be a team with other kids, all that is great. These are private leagues, not through the school. In Japan, school clubs tend to take care of everything and just send you a bill, but these private leagues seem more like what you might come across in the US, where parents are sent scrambling to buy everything. And yeah, tha's the part that isn't so great: everything I need to buy.
Cleats for both kids, baseball pants for one, soccar shorts for the other (I didn't know there were speciality shorts for soccar, but I was advised on what I had to buy), sports socks for both, shin guards for the soccar boy, batting gloves for the other. Luckily the baseball boy has a glove and a bat already and the organization said they were ok, but for the other, they weren't as accepting about the soccer ball he already had so I was forced to buy a more more expensive one.
All together just the equipment and clothes alone were north of $500 USD. That's not including the fees for the leagues, which as you might imagine are a lot more. I suppose that may not be so much, all things considered, but being hit with that all at once wasn't very fun.
But I guess I'm going to have to get used to fees. My friend's son joined the baseball club at his middle school last year and the student fee was nearly ¥100,000 (roughly $700 USD). I don't know if my son will want to join the baseball club at his school or if this private league will be enough, but if he does... more money.
Complaints aside, I'm happy my kids are doing sports. I don't harbor dreams of them going pro, and I would be perfectly content if they go into a field that uses their minds, but I do think being active outside is really good both for their health and for making friends. It's good for learning how to deal with failure too. You strike out, you miss the goal, you screw up, you make dumb mistakes—and you learn that it's ok to do all these things, that you just get back up, shake it off, and try again. That is a lesson that is worth its weight in gold.
I just wish it wasn't so expensive....
| David is an American teacher and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Mastodon. |
