“Baseball isn’t fun,” the Coach declared to the boys huddled inside for their inaugural workout of the year. “Winning baseball is fun.” This stark statement, delivered within the Baseball Zone Training Center on a winter night, was a far cry from the carefree “Friday Nights on the Field” where my son Charlie first discovered the joy of swinging a bat six years prior. With spring still two months away, a knot of doubt tightened in my stomach regarding my decision to enroll Charlie in a twelve-and-under “select” baseball team, a type of Travel Team.
Having successfully navigated the hyper-competitive currents of elite youth sports in the Washington, D.C., suburbs for years, I was now face-to-face with this relentless machine. And “competitive” in this context took on a particularly harsh edge: after the team’s sixth defeat in just seven games, the head coach threw in the towel. “I’m washing my hands of this mess,” he announced to the bewildered parents.
Indeed, the team’s infield defense often resembled a chaotic scene, and the relief pitching was consistently unpredictable. But this is hardly surprising given that we were dealing with a team of twelve-year-old boys, a demographic not typically known for flawless execution. However, according to the prevailing logic of today’s middle and upper-middle-class parenting circles, our team’s dismal one-and-six record wasn’t merely a string of bad luck; it was a source of shame. This pervasive attitude, which equates success in youth sports with moral virtue and views on-field failure as a personal failing, was palpable even before our players stepped up to the plate for their first at-bats.
Our boys trotted off the field, shoulders slumped, after the opening half-inning of their season opener. Errors and a series of weakly hit infield singles had quickly put them in a six-run hole. This wasn’t entirely unexpected; for many of these kids, it was their first taste of organized baseball in two years, thanks to pandemic-related lockdowns. Yet, as the boys approached the dugout, the head coach barked, “No!” He abruptly pulled them away and forced them to kneel on the grass near third base. Then, he launched into a tirade. Pointing accusingly at the pitcher, Coach bellowed, “I’m not angry at Colton for the batters he walked or the runs he gave up. I’m angry at you for making him get six outs!”
Angry. At eleven and twelve-year-olds. For committing fielding errors. This negativity proved contagious. Weeks later, my son misplayed a ground ball, an error that ignited a rally leading to a dramatic, come-from-behind victory for the opposing team in the final inning. That evening, I found myself confessing to my wife, “I really need to hit Charlie grounders every day so that he doesn’t make those errors.”
Just a week later, with daylight still lingering after Sunday dinner, Charlie asked if I would hit him fly balls in the “Wayback”—the grassy field with a baseball backstop behind our house. My mind, still replaying those errors and losses, instinctively suggested we drive to a nearby high school with a proper dirt infield so I could focus on hitting him grounders instead. A brief debate ensued, culminating in Charlie’s simple yet profound statement, “Dad, I just think fly balls are more fun.”
In that moment, I realized how close I had come to transforming a casual backyard father-son outing into a structured training session. My boy simply wanted to play catch with his dad, and I was preoccupied with his fielding statistics. I was falling headfirst into a trap. And it’s a trap that ensnares countless American parents, making their parenting journey less enjoyable and significantly more stressful.
We had already paid the exorbitant team fee (roughly four times more than we had ever paid before or since for any youth sports team), and switching Charlie to another team at this point was not feasible. We felt locked into this travel team commitment for the spring season. However, we made a pact early on to seek refuge in the more balanced and enjoyable environment of local recreational ball as soon as possible.
Throughout that spring, I witnessed firsthand the extent to which other families had already become entangled in this system. At one game, the opposing travel team boasted a massive twelve-foot-by-six-foot color banner proudly displaying photos of all their players. Some teams even provided their players with top-of-the-line, four-hundred-dollar “Cat 9” bats (the cost of which was conveniently bundled into the already hefty team fees, further escalating the financial stakes of simply letting your child play baseball).
I managed a wry chuckle one day as I walked towards the field and noticed a sign posted by the field administrator, which read:
Please Remember:
These are kids
This is a game
Coaches are volunteers
Umpires are human
Your child does not play in M.L.B.
However, after the game concluded, the humor had evaporated. The sign, it turned out, was not just necessary; it was utterly ignored. The parents, myself included at times, were investing far too much emotional weight in the game’s outcomes—and in their sons’ individual statistics—than was healthy or appropriate.
Charlie’s travel team continued its losing streak, and the boys maintained a demanding schedule of one or two practices per week alongside two or three games. For the majority of these kids, this was in addition to their commitments to school or recreational teams. On several Saturdays, I would receive a text from my friend, the father of Charlie’s lifelong companion: “Hey, Bobby wants to play some baseball with Charlie in the Wayback.” Week after week, I had to decline because Charlie had a game or practice scheduled.
One Friday evening, the coach sent out a last-minute announcement regarding a Saturday practice. Unaware of this change, when my friend texted on Saturday morning, “Is Charlie free to hang out with Bobby today?” I replied, “Yes. Send Bobby over.” Two twelve-year-olds were granted the rare opportunity to simply behave like twelve-year-olds. After perhaps half an hour of casually throwing and hitting baseballs to each other, I suspect they ventured off to the creek to hunt for rat snakes. Looking back, I am certain that I made the correct choice that day in allowing Charlie to skip practice, even though it felt like a difficult decision at the time, such was the ingrained pressure of the travel team commitment.
The Travel Team Trap is remarkably easy for any well-intentioned parent to stumble into. One doesn’t need to be an overly ambitious, achievement-obsessed parent, or a father attempting to relive his athletic dreams through his son, to find themselves ensnared by the allure of over-competitive youth sports. The insidious nature of this system lies in its ability to draw in even the most reluctant and unsuspecting families, creating a self-perpetuating cycle. Like many aspects of our contemporary parenting anxieties, it feeds on itself. It negatively impacts both the children and parents who fully embrace the travel team culture and those who consciously choose to avoid it.
Our personal experience with select baseball was merely unpleasant, not catastrophic. However, I have spoken with countless parents whose lives have been completely consumed by the Travel Team Trap or its equally demanding counterparts in activities like Irish dance, violin, or theater. Our broader culture subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) encourages parents to mold their daughters and sons into high achievers from a young age, instilling the belief that they must provide every conceivable advantage: tutors, specialized lessons, top-of-the-line equipment, and private coaching. This relentless pursuit of excellence consumes vast amounts of both financial resources and precious family time.
This trend of overly ambitious parenting, often driven by societal pressures or unconscious desires, is a significant contributing factor to why modern parenting feels so arduous and financially draining in America. If you operate under the assumption that raising children necessitates hiring personal trainers and driving across state lines every weekend for lacrosse tournaments, or that you must pull every possible lever to secure your daughter’s admission to an Ivy League university—lest you consider yourself a parental failure—you may logically conclude that limiting your family size to one or two children is the only viable option.
And so, a vicious cycle perpetuates itself. “With fewer children, parents become more child-centric,” as Kevin DeYoung, a father of nine, astutely observes. “And as parents become more child-centric, they do not see how they could possibly have more than one or two children.” Therefore, the initial step towards alleviating our collective parenting stress and fostering a more family-friendly society is to collectively lower our expectations and ambitions for our children, particularly in extracurricular pursuits.
Extracting oneself from the Travel Team Trap requires a conscious and sustained effort. But it is a feasible endeavor for any parent willing to re-evaluate their priorities. The process begins with consciously lowering your ambitions for your children in areas such as sports, music, dance, or any other activity where the pressure to excel becomes overwhelming. It involves recognizing that these activities, while inherently good, are ultimately means to a more important end: the development of essential life skills, positive habits, and strong moral character.
The subsequent steps will vary depending on individual family circumstances and values, but the guiding principle should always be what will genuinely contribute to the happiness and well-being of both parents and children. For Eve, a mother in Chicago, “boredom is a muse.” Allowing children extended periods of unstructured, unsupervised time often unlocks their innate creativity and resourcefulness. Many experts argue that a lack of parent-free, unstructured play is a significant root cause of the current mental health challenges observed among children.
When Lora made the deliberate decision to escape the Travel Team Trap, it wasn’t to embrace a life of leisure; rather, it was to prioritize family-centered activities such as kayaking and hiking. Lora’s children may not pursue professional backpacking careers, and they certainly won’t receive trophies or scholarships for their weekend adventures in nature. However, these regular family outings made it structurally impossible to commit to the relentless demands of an elite basketball or soccer travel team. The result was a significant improvement in her family’s overall happiness and connectedness as they shifted their focus from individual achievement to shared experiences and collective goals, like climbing literal mountains together.
I recall a conversation with a varsity baseball dad who lamented his younger son’s decision to switch to lacrosse: “Nine years of baseball down the drain.” But this perspective completely misses the point! Nine years of baseball is a fantastic experience in itself because baseball, in its essence, is a wonderful game. Now, his son has the opportunity to broaden his athletic horizons and explore new passions. If you have a child with an aptitude for sports, there’s a strong argument to be made for encouraging them to try a different sport each year. Baseball this spring, lacrosse next year, followed by tennis the year after. Your child may never become an elite specialist in any single sport, but “getting ahead” in youth sports is fundamentally not the primary objective of childhood.
Perhaps your child would be happiest focusing on one sport they truly love and dedicating their off-seasons to participating in the school play—or simply enjoying downtime. In our family, my wife and I often intentionally schedule sports-free or sports-light fall seasons to help our children re-focus on their academic pursuits. (And, admittedly, to keep October evenings open for that long-awaited Mets World Series run that will hopefully materialize someday.) Just because your child displays a talent or passion for basketball or violin doesn’t automatically necessitate enrolling them on the most competitive travel team or in the most prestigious orchestra. And even if you do decide to sign them up for a structured program, it certainly doesn’t have to be the most elite option available.
The most beneficial team for your child is often the one that practices conveniently across the street or the one offered as an after-school program. Instead of relentlessly searching for “Next Level Lacrosse,” perhaps consider looking into “next-door lacrosse.” Youth sports and extracurricular activities should serve to enhance your family’s life, not dictate it.
One of the most effective antidotes to the Travel Team Trap is the presence of siblings. Having multiple children not only makes the logistics of travel team sports significantly more complex, but it also diminishes the perceived necessity of such intense specialization. John, a dad I know through school and baseball circles, whom I’ve coached his younger son Sammy (a very capable baseball player), attributes Sammy’s baseball prowess to a simple factor: Sammy has an older brother, Ozzie. “You know that ten-thousand-hours thing?” John asks, referencing the popular theory that mastery requires ten thousand hours of dedicated practice. “Sammy got those ten thousand hours in our front yard with Ozzie.”
Following the abrupt departure of Charlie’s select travel team head coach just seven games into the season, a group of parents voiced their concerns: our boys simply weren’t having fun anymore. The intense pressure to perform was actually hindering their performance and contributing to more losses. Early in the season, the boys had managed to build a few late-game leads, but they never seemed to enjoy them. They were perpetually anxious about making a mistake and “blowing” the game—especially given the anticipated reprimand from the coach if they did.
After this parental intervention and the subsequent coaching change, a palpable sense of relief washed over the team. By the end of the season, the boys were genuinely enjoying themselves again. They managed to tie a strong team late in the regular season and then pulled off a surprising upset victory in the playoffs. We opted for a summer break from organized baseball, and in the fall, Charlie expressed his desire to return to his former recreational team. While the level of competition, the quality of umpiring, and the condition of the fields were noticeably less polished compared to his travel team experience, I have never witnessed a group of boys have more unadulterated fun playing baseball than the “Green Goblins” of 2021.
Furthermore, my wife Katie and I often felt comfortable skipping Charlie’s games that fall. Don’t misunderstand; I thoroughly enjoyed watching that team play. But on some game days, I chose to take our younger children to the park or simply prioritize rest and recharge. The Goblins’ coach was always happy to give Charlie a ride to the field. Contrary to the prevailing travel team narrative, the entire family did not need to be present at every game for Charlie to participate in and benefit from playing baseball.
In one particularly close and tense Goblins game, Charlie was playing second base in the final inning with a narrow one-run lead. He made a mental miscue, executing a needless throw to home plate, which allowed the opposing batter to reach base safely. That baserunner ultimately scored the winning run in a heartbreaking one-run defeat. (At this juncture, Charlie has specifically requested that I include some of his defensive highlights from his 2021 baseball season to avoid the impression that he was solely responsible for game-losing errors. I will duly note that he was the winning pitcher in the select team’s single regular-season victory, and for the Goblins, he pitched scoreless final innings to secure one-run leads in two consecutive games.)
When Charlie returned to the car after that tough loss, he appeared somewhat dejected, but he articulated, “I know I should have thrown to first base instead of home on that play. I had mentally rehearsed what I would do before the pitch, but I failed to adjust after the ball deflected off the pitcher’s glove.”
As a former baseball player and coach myself, I was genuinely impressed by Charlie’s ability to recognize his mistake with such clarity. As his father, I was even more thrilled that my young son was demonstrating the maturity to acknowledge an error and proactively think about how to improve in the future.
During the drive home, a realization dawned on me: it was actually a positive thing that Charlie had made that mental error and that it had cost his team the game. This is because, ultimately, my ambitions for my children are not actually low at all. My wife and I are not striving to mold them into elite athletes or virtuoso musicians. Our deeper aspiration is to help them develop into men and women of strong character and virtue. This is a journey that we, as parents, cannot undertake for them. We can only provide them with the opportunities to make their own mistakes and learn their own invaluable lessons along the way, ideally within the supportive and forgiving context of a recreational travel team experience that prioritizes fun and development over relentless pursuit of victory.
This essay is adapted from Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be (Harper, 2024).
