The Extracurriculars

When my eldest daughter was born, I declared that I was not going to be one of Those Parents who was constantly running from activity to activity with my child.  She would not be doing All The Things.  We would be careful and choose an activity wisely.

When she was little, we had a regular Mothers’ Group catch-up, but that was as much for me as it was for her.  We also did baby swimming lessons (with my Mothers’ Group friends).  And that was it.  

When Kid 2 came along, the Mothers’ Group catch-ups were far less frequent (most of us were back at work at least part-time, we each had a second child within a few years of the first, and two of us wound up with three), but we stuck with the swimming lessons.  The entire time she was in the baby class (requiring me to be in the water with her), I managed to get the two girls into a lesson at the same time – Kid 1 with her own teacher, Kid 2 with me.  Both girls eventually did a weekly class (soccer for one, dance for the other) at daycare, but that was all.

Our son came along at the end of my eldest daughter's first year at primary school.  We’d purposely taken a break from swimming for her first year of school and hadn’t taken on anything else.  Every week or so, we’d get another flyer come home from school, advertising yet another organised sport or club.  There was soccer, swimming, tennis, netball, drama, singing, instrument lessons . . . there was a huge variety of options.  And eventually the girls wanted to try new things.

At first, my rule was swimming and one other activity.  Soon that became two activities, plus swimming.  Then it was “Well, you can do swimming at school, and anything else has to be at school or within walking distance”.  

And this is how it has come to pass that now Kid 1 does four extracurricular activities, Kid 2 does five and Kid 3 does two.  There is one overlap (the girls are both in the same singing class), a Saturday class that my husband has responsibility for and a couple where I take another child to an activity in return for another parent bringing my kid home.  This still means two days with both a before- and an after-school activity, and one day with four separate after-school extracurriculars.  I’ve only got three children – Kid 2 has two activities on the same afternoon.  Happily, the drop off/pick up times on all four activities line up perfectly, so it’s not too bad . . . although I do walk five kilometres that day and leave the house on five separate occasions because of my children.  

The kids do a reasonable spread of activities – all three of them sing and the girls both do drama and play an instrument (violin for the eldest, flute for Kid 2), plus my eldest does an art class, the middle one takes tennis and Kung Fu and the little guy does a movement and balance class. 

I started with good intentions of not doing too much . . . but here we are.  At least they’re all having fun!