Living Vicariously Through Your Children

Recently a friend of mine sent me an article that goes to the crux of what I am trying to say in my writing.  The article in the May 2024 Atlantic Magazine by Rich Cohen entitled “The Sad Fate of The Sports Parents”, Mr. Cohen states that “a true sports parent dies twice. ‘There’s the death that awaits us all at the end of a long or short life, the result of illness, misadventure, fire, falling object, hydroplaning car, or derailing train. But there is also the death that come in the midst of life, the purgatorial purposelessness that follows the final season on the sidelines or in the bleachers, when your young sports kid hangs up their skates, cleats or spikes after that last game.’” 

In my opinion, this article goes to much  of what I have been writing about, too many children are/maybe playing youth sports at higher levels just to placate their parents while their parents are living vicariously through their children.  Now, this is not true in every parent/child relationship, but in my experience, it happens more often than we think and could be one of the main reasons that 70% of our youth are quitting youth sports by the time they reach the age of 13 years old according to surveys done by the National Alliance for Youth Sports.

In the article Mr. Cohen, who was a hockey parent, discusses when his son told him that he wanted to quit playing hockey.  He stated how, following the last game of his high school season, he asked his son if he was going to try out for the spring soccer season (something that is important in hockey in order to keep improving) and his son’s response was “I’m going to think about it.”  Now according to Mr. Cohen this was like hearing your girlfriend say, “we need to talk.”  And as time went on, Mr. Cohen realized that this was the first salvo in his son, telling him that he no longer wanted to play hockey.  He wanted to quit but did not want to break his father’s heart, and he also did not want his father to rant and rave over his decision or, more importantly, be talked out of his decision.  It was at this point that Mr. Cohen realized that their roles were reversed, and the son had become the parent, and the parent had become the son. 

In the article, Mr. Cohen explains his sons travels through the world of youth hockey.  He states that while his son had no “genus for the game” he loved it and worked his way to some of the top teams in his age groups.  He goes on further to state that when people “accuse sports parents of living through their kids, they mean that the parents want the kid to achieve in a way they never did.” And he further states that it is only part of the story, “for most of us; the reward is in the present, not the past.  You are treated better when your kid scores; your status is raised.  Your kid being on the top team puts you, or so many people in my world (Mr. Cohen’s hockey world) seem to believe, in a higher class of parents.  If your kid is demoted, dropped from the AA squad to A or from A to B, your status and social life are diminished.  It’s like experiencing a financial reversal.”  Mr. Cohen admits that while his son was progressing through the different levels of youth hockey he had visions of high school stardom, followed by a college career and even a possible professional hockey career, all the while knowing this was a fantasy as he was never that good, simultaneously knowing, it did not make the dreams less powerful.  In the end, Mr. Cohen stated that he lost his way, “rather than letting him enjoy the moment and the fact that these seasons were his career, not a preparation or a path towards one, I was constantly scheming about his next move, his next opportunity, his next shot at the big time.” 

Now, both of my children’s youth sports careers died natural deaths when they aged out and started high school and while both of my children only played at the recreation level there was a bit of sadness when my son played his last baseball game and was done playing forever; however, my reasons for the sadness had little to do with my living vicariously through him and more to the fact that I would miss watching him play and hanging out with the other parents during games.  Now, please do not mistake this with what Mr. Cohen stated being a “higher class of parent”. It was totally because I enjoyed spending time with the parents and became friends with many of them.  Too many times, parents get overly involved in their children’s sport pursuits to the point of losing sight of what youth sports are meant to be, a place for children to be with friends having fun, learning new skills, learning how to win and lose gracefully and how to be part of a team, not so mom and/or dad can relive their glory years through their child.  I saw many parents, fathers in particular, ruin their child’s youth sporting career due to being overbearing and trying to relive their youth through their child and in my humble opinion this has to stop and youth sports needs to be returned to the youth and not the adults running them.