Sucks to be a child these days. I played with neighborhood kids doing hide & seek, soccer, baseball, ditch digging, crayfish-fishing, arcade, nintendo, bookstore, etc.
Generations of kids grew up that way and they all turned out fine.
What's the point of all these stupid activities we put our kids through these days. I find the very existence of this kind of service very depressing given how rich we are as society.
Fewer kids are dying now the than they did back then, so I feel saying "Generations of kids grew up that way and they all turned out fine" is misleading.
I guess it depends on what you consider normal. I could easily see myself enrolling my kids in, say, martial arts (3 sessions per week), music (1), and swimming lessons (1). That's less than one activity per day, making it very reasonable by my standards.
If there are no overlaps in times and nothing is within walking distance and the local buses aren't an option, that would be 5 trips per kid per week, so 10 or 15. I'd be looking to organize some sort of car pools with the other parents, at a minimum.
I know parents do these things with hope of raising well-rounded children, but I do wonder about their value when all parents are doing the same thing.
There used to be more leeway to do other things before, but now many upper-middle class families are basically prepping their young kids for college admission, some without even realizing it.
Generations of kids grew up that way and they all turned out fine.
What's the point of all these stupid activities we put our kids through these days. I find the very existence of this kind of service very depressing given how rich we are as society.