Training three times a week and $1400 to play: parents are kicking the fun out of kids’ sport

It started with a ping. An email notification from my daughter’s soccer club. Training will increase to three nights a week, starting with preseason in mid-January.

You’d be forgiven for thinking my daughter was in a national academy, on the pathway to becoming a Matilda. But she’s not. She’s 10. She plays for a local club in suburban Melbourne.

I scan further down the email and discover the play fee for next season will be almost double what we paid this year. Then, highlighted in bold: “Players are required to attend all training days.”

My generation of parents has lost the plot. We’ve turned play into performance and leisure into logistics. We talk about giving our kids “opportunities”, but what we’ve really given them (and ourselves) is a roster.

Three nights a week means getting home late, eating dinner even later, and squeezing homework, playtime and downtime into whatever cracks remain. Add swimming lessons (a non-negotiable) and my son’s sports, and that leaves one free night. Somehow, between our jobs and two kids with after-school schedules, my husband and I pull together like a well-oiled machine, navigating the weekly obstacle course that is modern-day parenting of sporty kids.

It’s a situation that is impossible to avoid. My daughter loves soccer. She’s committed, but for her it’s about time with her mates, not chasing a top-team dream. While I want to flash a red card at a system that’s turned childhood sport into a job, my parental guilt gushes in when I think about saying no to next season.

I’m confident that I’m not the only one who feels this way. Club coaches and coordinators, many of whom are parents themselves, must see and feel the same strain. I don’t question their passion or intent to improve the kids’ soccer skills, but I do wonder who called the fun police and decided playing for enjoyment isn’t enough.

The price tag has also shifted the goalposts. Almost $1400 for my 10-year-old to play soccer with her beloved club. I repeat, a local club in suburban Melbourne. That’s not far off what my family of four spend on groceries each month.

Community sport was once the great equaliser. Kids from every postcode could lace up their boots and run onto the same field. Now, the fees and the multiple training sessions add higher hurdles to jump.

We’ve become the generation that confuses effort with achievement. We put metrics on childhood. We say it’s about teamwork and resilience but really we’re terrified our kids won’t make the cut. Sporting scores and highlights are logged in real time on apps, feeding the dopamine hit of adult ambition, while we pretend that it’s all “so the grandparents can see the live scores from their Winnebago, while travelling through Queensland!”

On the Play by the Rules website, an Australian initiative aimed at making sport more inclusive, safe and fair, we are told that one of the most influential factors in Australian children deciding to quit sport is the pressure caused by adult expectations. Intense training schedules mandated by adults are taking the fun out of the game.

My husband has coached junior cricket for five years. This season he has not been able to find a parent willing to volunteer as team manager. Not because we’re too busy — though we are — but because some have openly admitted they worry that helping with the “lower” team might hurt their child’s chances of being promoted into the top side. Where has “just for the love of the game” gone?

Parental ambition feels more competitive than the cricket itself. Are we trying to replay our own missed chances? With this approach, no one wins. Some kids have their own drive to reach the top team (and good on them!), but we’re eroding the space for those who want sport to be one part of their lives, not the whole thing. I want my son to enjoy cricket, to laugh with his mates, head home with grass-stained knees and celebrate the fours. Not to feel disappointed he didn’t hit sixes.

For me growing up, weekend sports smelled of sunscreen and grass. These days it carries the faint scent of parental anxiety, tangled up in talk of the batting order. Call me too nostalgic but take me back to the sport of the ’90s — one training, one game, one uniform that smelt faintly of Dettol and no half-time oranges in sight! We giggled through drills, trained in whatever we wore to school and somehow still made the grand final.

My husband and I face a difficult decision. My daughter loves soccer, but three nights a week isn’t sustainable - not for her, and not for us. And I’m flabbergasted at the cost! All parents want the best for our children but forget that sometimes the best means less.

By the way, any soccer teams out there after a 10-year-old who plays for the love of the game?

Kellie Floyd is a freelance writer and marketing and communications consultant.

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