High school Freshman daughter now plays badminton.

I thought track events were brutal to attend.  My daughter is waiting to play and I’m watching random girls play.  

This is painful to watch.  I should’ve brought toothpicks to keep my eyes open.  

Ever attend any of your kids activities that hurt?

Olympic badminton? I can definitely watch that. Maybe I'm biased because I played competitively for years in my youth. 

grade school concerts..

I had a boy that did hip hop dance. We would drive him 200kms each way to a show. You sit around for hours watching other kids dance. Then he'd do his dance for 2.5 minutes. Then drive the 200kms home. Madness!

Oh and second grade school concerts. Christmas concerts in particular - unbearable.

On the bright side, you've never have to worry about teenage pregnancy.

Our district starts beginning band in 5th grade.   In November after three months of practice they have an hour long concert.   This one hurts.   

They invite the extra curricular junior high Jazz band to perform to show and encourage the kids that they will get better.   Since the daughter was in jazz band for three years I endured that beginning concert for 4 years.  

I know - first world problems.  

In reply to captdownshift :

I don’t know about that. Lots of time spent around shuttlecocks. 

Swim meets. 4 hours in a humid room to watch your kid swim for 90 seconds,

You will be completely into badminton before the end of the school year. 

We endured a few years of soccer with the girls - sweltering heat when the season starts, to freezing & blustery winds by the time it ends. The girls also did a year or two of volleyball, but we never traveled to the far away games. 

Our oldest boy - who's the least athletic person ever(more so than me even) played soccer his freshman year of HS. Fortunately it was a short season & we only attended a couple games. Our other son did well in little league - he hit a home run over the fence & almost took out the pitcher on the next field - but he (thankfully) didn't want to continue in sports afterward. 

Ih and two of them each had turns in the grade school "band", which included a total of 6 or 7 kids they could get to sign up. 

Tom_Spangler said:

Swim meets. 4 hours in a humid room to watch your kid swim for 90 seconds,

Dana's oldest daughter does swim and band. Not my kid, so I don't have to attend, but was told specifically because of swimming that my daughter will do racing instead. 

Wow.  You guys are cynical.  I can't think of a single event that my kids have ever been in that I didn't enjoy immensely.  Okay, the grade school honors thing where they read the names of every kid that got A's and B's.  That was pretty boring, but I'd always find another parent to chat with.  The ball games and robotics competitions and concerts I have absolutely loved.

clutchsmoke said:

Olympic badminton? I can definitely watch that. Maybe I'm biased because I played competitively for years in my youth. 

Your poor parents.

Dave said:

I had a boy that did hip hop dance. We would drive him 200kms each way to a show. You sit around for hours watching other kids dance. Then he'd do his dance for 2.5 minutes. Then drive the 200kms home. Madness!

So basically, the kids equivalent of autox.

My dad is in the Colorado badminton hall of fame. No joke.

Not so much as an "activity" as psychological warfare:

This berkeleying weapon of sanity destruction. Now I know why my parents drank.

In reply to stanger_missle :

Does that one play "The Brown Note?"

My 9 year old boy is dancing and acting.  The recitals can be long but I'm excited for his dances.  The plays can be a bit long and he only has had small parts but he loves doing them and I'm glad he's doing something he loves.

My youngest boy is 7 and all in to soccer.  Outdoor games can be tough but he's played all winter on two indoor teams and the games are very fun to watch as the ball rarely is out of play.

We do our part to properly embarrass them every opportunity we can.

My twins play baseball and flag football it's sometimes hectic to get them to everything with my work schedule but I love every minute of it. I'm happy they have interests in something that isn't a video game and gets them outside.

captdownshift said:

On the bright side, you've never have to worry about teenage pregnancy.

Does girls HS badminton wear the same wonderfully,  unnecessary tight, short shorts like girls HS volleyball?  Those have a way of giving lots of thoughts of things that lead to teenage pregnancy! 

1988RedT2 said:

Wow.  You guys are cynical.  I can't think of a single event that my kids have ever been in that I didn't enjoy immensely.  Okay, the grade school honors thing where they read the names of every kid that got A's and B's.  That was pretty boring, but I'd always find another parent to chat with.  The ball games and robotics competitions and concerts I have absolutely loved.

To be fair they didn't want to be there any more than we did.

Keep in mind our kids went to the same school that we did, had many of the same teachers, and many of their classmates were children of our classmates - and we never really cared for any of these people or the school from our time there decades before. But such is life in a small town. 

stanger_missle said:

Not so much as an "activity" as psychological warfare:

This berkeleying weapon of sanity destruction. Now I know why my parents drank.

When I was in grammar school we played Joy to the World on those for a Christmas play.  I bet still can.  Only song I ever learned on it.  

clutchsmoke said:

Olympic badminton? I can definitely watch that. Maybe I'm biased because I played competitively for years in my youth. 

Wait, really? You'll have to tell me about this sometime  

The only time I don't like watching my kids is when they're obviously not having fun. If they're passionate about something, no matter how weird it is, it's fun to see them be excited about doing well at it. 

1988RedT2 said:

Wow.  You guys are cynical.  I can't think of a single event that my kids have ever been in that I didn't enjoy immensely.  Okay, the grade school honors thing where they read the names of every kid that got A's and B's.  That was pretty boring, but I'd always find another parent to chat with.  The ball games and robotics competitions and concerts I have absolutely loved.

To be fair, I was only talking about the swim meets.  My kids have done soccer, baseball, softball, basketball, cross country, track, quiz bowl, choir, and drama, and I like all of that and have participated in a lot, as well.  Building sets for "The Wizard of Oz" was way more fun than I expected it to be.