The Kids ARE All Right: Enjoying Parenting with Less Stress with Gabrielle Blair EP380

that's hard. It's hard to do, but I guess I just wish there was already less talking about it and pressure. But specifically, I wish people would stress less about projects for their elementary school children because I have taken the attitude that like it's for them to do, maybe with a little bit of like prodding to actually do it, but that like my involvement in designing said project or

helping carry out said projects should be none to very little. Yeah, And yet what I see being turned in and talked about and shown even on the big What's Up chats does not at all look like that's everybody's point of view or attitude, And then that just makes it hard for the kids that are trying to do things independently. So I just wish school would be even explicit to be like projects are for the kids, They are not a family activity to take up all of your Sunday.

They are for the kid to learn to put together a timeline and figure out how to do stuff. And if said kid is maybe in first grade and not capable of doing that, maybe they don't need to be doing a project.

that a little bit in our family. And one thing we did is that Jasper was very diligent about getting an application into one of our major state universities that has rolling admission, and so he got that in in mid September and thus got his acceptance approximately a week later. And so he has that, like he has an admitted student there, he can apply anywhere else he wants to.

was on for a while. People will use the phrase all the time, this too shall pass, which is so true because whatever you are dealing with in the moment maybe incredibly intense, Like I don't want to say that it's not worth feeling stressed about, like that it's not a really big thing at the time, because it probably is. But something else is going to be a problem in six to twelve months, and that thing won't be a problem.

And so I think having that mindset is helpful for a lot of this, and that people are who they are, Your kids are who they are, You are, not who you are solely because of random choices your parents made about what they put in your lunch, I mean, or whether they did your fifth grade project for you.

so it feels like so high stakes. And to try and offer advice to someone when I don't really know their situation, right, I don't know their child, I don't know their spouse or partner or non partner status. I don't know their job or financial situation. I just don't know anything. So I'm of like offering up advice or some kind of guidance. It just feels like there's so much risk that I'm going to do as much harm

as good, or maybe more harm than good. So I was really resistant to this project for a long time. We've been asked for a parenting book. For over a decade. People have been asking us to write a parenting book, and I was just really, really resistant. And that was just one of the reasons. But like, it's just such a fraught thing that, you know, my last book, which seems like those would be way more sensitive topics, but I actually feel much more vulnerable about this book than

my last one. And partly also because it's very personal. You're talking about your family, It's a very personal thing.

these years that I've been online. I think as a culture, we're making parenting harder and harder and harder, you know, like more and more difficult with every passing year. And I had more kids than most of my peers, and I had them earlier the most of my peers. So I've been someone that people could come to for guidance just because I had like more years under my belt, right,

you know, more parenting years. And I feel like I can say with confidence to parents right now that like it's going to be okay, and I can tell them why it's going to be okay, that I'm not just like trying to give them platitudes that I'm really going to say here, let me explain where the stress is coming from. Let me try and show you how we kind of bypassed a lot of that stress whenever we could, and that you can too, and that so much of this is just totally manufactured by our society and is

not real so much of what we're stressing about. So if I could do one thing with this book, it would be relieve the parental stress, you know, help parents enjoy this situation more than just be stressed out about it.

this isn't just in my head. People need this message. People need this message. And if you're a parent that is stressed out and feel overwhelmed and the books are making you feel more overwhelmed, I really think this book will help you. I truly hope it will.

You've got to be stressed out about you know what about your college. You know, your kid is just born, and you're like, well, where are they going to preschool? Because that's gonna affect where they go to college. Like you're just like, we're so stressed out about it and we don't need to be. It turns out we don't need to be and I can. And again, we want to explain why. It's not like we're just saying we're relaxed,

it's going to be fine. We're really saying you can relax and this is why, and this is why, and this is how.

am kind of in it, not in a super stressful way. Actually, my kids play at the competitive level, but like on the very low end of that where there's no real future thoughts. It's more about now and what they're enjoying right now. And it still takes up a lot of time.

And I was frustrated even then as I'm watching, like the stress around this, Like one, it required a lot of family time, and we already had two younger kids at the time, and so this was not an easy thing to even just like get out of the house and there are practices and there's prevving the snacks and there's a tournament that goes extra long or whatever it is.

And I remember feeling like really like, oh, the coach is like mad, or the other parents are mad if we're going to be late to something or we're going to miss a practice like this was like very serious, this tea ball for a lot of these families, And I was so frustrated because I was like, these kids are four and five, Like what is happening? What do we think is happening here? Do we really think we're

training the next pro athletes? Statistically? We definitely are not, Like we definitely are not the chance that anyone in this group becomes pro And no one did you know, like the chance to any of these kids even play in high school is actually pretty low, right, So it was really frustrated and that it was like a part time job just to have your kid try teaball. So we really, my husband and I had to really sit down and I had to say, look, I played sport

like I was heavy into track and filled. My husband was heavy into tennis, like we played sports, and I played sports growing up, so did my husband. I value sports. I don't mean to say that I don't, But what are we doing here? Like what our goal? Why do we have our kid in tea ball? What is happening? And is this just it? Is this just like yep, to be in sports. It's going to be twenty hours a week from here on out for the rest of your life. And if you have multiple kids, tough luck

for you. This is now a full time job. And I couldn't, you know, like, I just couldn't handle that. So we said, why would we want our kids to do sports? What did we get out of it? What do we want them to get out of it? Every family will be different. Your family might be like, oh no, we want to do sports eighty hours a week, like this is what we do, This is our family, our

kids love it, our parents love it. Right, if you're happy with your sports situation, I'm not asking you to change it, But if you are overwhelmed, I'm giving you permission to say there are other options. So we ended up saying, Okay, we definitely want our kids to know sports. They live in America. Sports are a big deal here. You kind of need to know how basketball works, and how baseball works, and how football works, and now soccer.

You know, like you need to know some of this step right, and the Olympics come and it's a big cultural event and you know, you just want it. Obviously, we'd want you to be familiar with We want our kids to be familiar with sports. Okay, Well that's friend,

and that's not the only goal. The other things, like we want them to understand teamwork and good sportsmanship and just general like find something they like to do with their bodies that they could do their whole life that they you know, they like the movement and the athleticism. So if those are the goals, a twenty hour a week sports team isn't actually required to meet those goals. There's a lot of ways you could meet those goals.

They may be meeting them in pe classes. You may get it from going to the park, meeting other family friends at the park when the summer once a week and you're like, oh, let's have a pickup t ball game, you know, baseball game there, and the kids are learning the rules there. There may be like a general sports camp that they can do for a week where they

get introduced to a few different things. You could hire the teenagers in your neighborhood that are like the friendly kids to like, hey, can you teach my kids how to play tennis this summer? You know. I mean, there's a million ways to go about this without having taking over your life. And of course, if your kid is really interesting in the sport and really good at a sport, and they show some real interest and passion there, then of course you can follow that lead and maybe it

does become a bigger part of your family life. But you don't have to assume that's what's going to happen, and you don't have to really make sacrifices for this thing. I see so many families make major sacrifices for a sport for many, many years, and by the time the kid is even in high school, they're so burned out on the sport. They're not interested, they don't ever want to play it again. This does not become a lifelong

passion for them. They're just like done with it. And you're going, what was that about, Like the sport has now kind of been ruined for this kid and your family spends so much time on it that you missed out finding out what your kid actually likes.

And then also like what you said about the few kids that are going to end up making it through and this becomes part of their lives are the ones that are going to be the very intrinsically motivated ones from the beginning. And then you probably wouldn't even like be listening. You'd be like, well, this doesn't apply to me because my kid's obsessed, and like doesn't the one to like rein it in.

or whatever it is. Again, statistically, that's not going to happen. Just understand what you're doing here, Like, just understand what your goals are, what your aims are, and really make sure like are you doing this for you or for your kids? You know, like, really understand what's happening before you make those sacrifices, because you just end up feeling bitter and burned out and stressed out and it's totally unnecessary.

hymns or things like that. Was like a sort of a cultural thing, although very of course, very few people actually do that, but and that was sort of the maybe the goal for our families growing up, you know, for us doing lessons, we didn't have that goal for our kids. We didn't think it was necessary for them to learn how to like accompany church music. So we're like, well, why are we doing this? And we had a few

different things in mind. The studies about that, like learning music, learning the language, these kinds of things can open up your brain and help to do better in other areas. So we thought, oh, that's really great. But more than that, we just enjoy music. It's a beautiful part of life. And we wanted to be able to just do kind of a call family jam sessions where everyone's together and

we can just pick up whatever instruments nearby. We try to keep a variety of instruments around and enjoy music together, playing and singing learning a song together. And so once that was the goal. Once we understood what the goal was, then suddenly if our kid was just butting heads with us and like not really loving piano or whatever piano lessons, not mining to practice, we could go, Okay, well, is

it another instrument you'd like to do? Do we need a different teacher here, or maybe you've learned enough, like if you can like read the piano music enough just to like plink out the tune when we're learning a new song. Okay, well that's an Yeah, we're not expecting you to become a concert pianist. If you were going to be that, you would have given us signs that that's what was gonna happen, that's what you were interested in doing. And it's interesting because the instrument our kids

have done tons of different instruments. They've tried still in role in school projects, school orchestras, they've done bands, they've done piano lessons, they've done some string instruments. We've really tried a bunch of different things, because you know, you have to try a lot of stuff to figure out what you like music wise. But it's interesting that the one they've landed on. They almost all well all of them played guitar, and I don't think we actually did

lessons for that. Maybe for a couple of weeks for one of our kids. They picked it up from YouTube, learning chords from each other. My husband knew several courts, you know, could teach them some and that's the one that maybe gets used the most in our house of all the instruments. So it's interesting, no matter how what you're doing lesson wise, your kids may end up somewhere else and that's totally fine. But also I feel like we were pretty good at reaching that goal. Our family

job sessions are delightful. There are a lot a lot of fun, and we could get there without having a lot of stress around our music lessons.

and I want to hear. I want to hear both how you felt while they were happening, tell people a little bit about some of those like interesting ups and downs, and now also how you see it in retrospect, because I'm curiously it's different.

Like this is just like a major part of stress for parents, and that extends all the way through college applications, from preschool and on, and we have certainly felt it. We talk about in the book that there's a cultural myth that we've titled the Reliable Paths of Success, and it is a myth that has such a stronghold that even when we sort of became aware of it and

try to break away, we would get pulled in. We'd get pulled in, Like it's just it's got a gravity to it that just grabs you and keeps you there. And I totally understand because we aren't given a guide

book as parents. There is no instruction manual, and so this myth is really appealing because the idea is that if you just stick to this path and keep your kid on this reliable path to success, if they get in the right preschool and then eventually the right middle school, and then they take the right ap classes and do the right sports, that they will get into the top

college and then they will have a happy life. Like this is this compelling, compelling myth because you want instructions, You want someone to say, here's the full proof way. Of course, it's not full proof. It never was, but it even is less reliable than it if it was reliable at some point. It's even less now, Like you could get a perfect score on the SAT and be the top of your class, be the valedictorian, and still

not get into Harvard. Like that's a common story. Like it's there is no guarantee anymore on this reliable quote unquote path to success. But what happened is, and I think a lot of stress for parents is if your kid veers from that path, it's extremely stressful. If they come home with bad grades, You're like, they're off the path. What do we do? How do we get them back on the path? You know, like it feels terrifying if they dropped out of a high school. You're like, whoa

red alarm bells? Right, It's just like, holy cow, that's the worst thing possible. And our kids ended up stepping off the path a few times. One of the times, the first time that really they stepped off the path and we realized, oh, okay, there's no going back, is when we extended our time. We had moved to France and we extended our time. We thought we're going to be there eight for a year, and we'd specifically built

it around this path to success. We said we're going to leave in the middle of the seventh grade for our oldest and get back in the middle of the eighth grade. So they're like going to be in both yearbooks. They're not going to like miss anything, and they'll definitely be back before high school starts, so they'll have like

a clean transcript us playing transcript for high school. But then we extended, and we extended a few times, and we had this talk like, oh, this means they're going to have a messed up transcript, like we've now taken them off the path in a way that they can't get back to the path, like it's over. And we weren't sure if that was the right you know, like

we were terrified. But if we looked at like what was actually happening in front of us, us our family was thriving in France, we had more family closest, more time together, the kids are learning a new language, We're you know, expounding our horizons, opening our minds. Of course we should have stayed, you know, like it was it was the right thing to do, but it was so terrifying to kind of permanently take our kid off that path. So that was the first time that was really scary.

Then we've had other times. We've had kids that skip their senior year because they decided to go be a a pair in another country, and we've had things like that. The scariest was having a kid drop out of high school. And I had mentioned that earlier. It is in fact cause for alarm, your brain freaks out. I'm a college graduate. My husband's not just a college graduate, but two masters and a PhD from Columbia, Like, like he's you know,

education is vital for us. Our parents are educated, but on both sets have graduate degree, like we just have like education. They're teachers and professors. It's like education is so important. And we had a kid drop out of high school. You're like, what, And this is a kid that had great grades. This is a kid that teachers love. There was no had like fallen in with a bad crowd or you know whatever stereotypical thing. He was just like, no,

I'm done, I'm done. I'm out of here. And we were totally freaked out, totally freaked out because like, whoa, what do you do when you're like.

application counselor a friend recommended this person. We said, okay, great, we'll talk to them, and it was instantly a million times better just by like looking at some other options. I can tell you now, and we say in the book, like, I don't want to stress anyone out. This kid had a full right scholarship to one of the top universities in the country and graduated with honors and is great. The kid is great, Like like, it all worked out.

So I'm going to tell you the end first, so you don't have to be listening and be stressed out for this kid. But what we learned in that lesson is, oh, that reliable path of success is one path. It's one path of thousands of millions. It's one path. The chance that it's going to be the right path for your kid pretty small. It might though it is the right

path for some kids. And what we're doing as a culture is we're trying to take every kid and fit them on this path, and we're trying so hard to do that, and instead what we discovered is, oh, there's all these million paths and we just have to find the one that fits our kid. And we did, and anyone can and it really is going to be okay. And in our kid's case, we learned about community college, which is it seems like we should know, we didn't.

We had experience community college our parents had, and it

was just sort of a new thing to us. And not only did we fall in love with community college, like our kids experience, there was fantastic, great teachers, great classes, and a diversity of age and experience in the classes that you're not going to get at a standard university, right because everyone at a standard university starts in they're all eighteen or nineteen, and you know anyway, So loved our experience there, but it was even better than that.

Many states, and I think most states have programs where if you enter community college and take a specific course of classes and pass those classes, you're guaranteed entrance into a top university in the state. And California offers that, and it's an incredible program. It's what our child did, and not only did they have an amazing time in college,

it cost half of what college normally. Would we cut our college class completely in half, Like, imagine that, take fifty percent of your college costs and just make them disappear. Because community college is incredibly affordable. I think our tuition for the semester, I'm trying to remember. I think it was like three hundred dollars, like insane.

up extra work. That's its own commentary for another's talk. But I'm just trying to say that it was a quality education. It was not what we expected. We didn't know anything about it, and boy were we educated. Boy did we get an education about community college and we loved it. So that's an option. But it's also this illustration of American culture loving to give fresh starts, second chances, clean slates. We really love that. So if you mess up in high school and you feel like life is over,

it's just not true. There are so many fresh starts and second chances that you'll get. And it's the same thing. If you mess up in college, there's a graduate school. And if college just isn't for you, there are trade schools, there are internships, there are other kinds of training. We love a fresh start, and so just keep that in mind. If your kid is messing up or you feel like, oh, they got off the path and I'm so stressed out, there are a million paths. You're going to find them

when that fits your kid. And there are a million successful people the medical students that you're talking about, there are a million successful people that you know right now that if you go ask their background, you're going to find out they were not on that path. They did not take the reliable path to success. They took a different path. And you'll be shocked to find out how many people that you're looking around saying, oh, they have a successful life, they're a happy person, did not take

that path. And once you really understand that, a lot of your parental stress can disappear, can just evaporate. Because our kid graduated, like I said, top university, full scholarship. He never took an sat or ACT, didn't take any AP tests, never applied to a college besides the filling out a form for community college, which is not like college apps, like the stressful college apps, none of that. Just bypassed all of that and still had a fantastic trajectory.

trying this, basically saying. So he's suing his parents basically saying, you forced me to be here, and I don't want to be here. I don't like this life that I've got for myself, Like this is not what I want. And so he's suing his parents for forcing him to be alive, forcing him to come to their family, or however you want to describe that I was fascinated by

the idea. Partly it was I've had my own history of mental health issues with depression, and I know what it feels like to be like, yeah, I don't want to be here like this is, this is I'm not interested in this, which is part of the you know, the lives of depression that feeds your brain. But anyway, so I was very interested in that whole concept and it really got me thinking about although I don't know what happened with the lawsuit, and I don't really care,

it didn't really matter. I was really interested in this idea that like, it's true, I forced my kids to come here, like to come to earth or however you like, or to be born, or however you like to phrase it. They didn't have a choice in it. Our kids don't get to choose their parents, their social status, their financial status, the city they live in, and it might not be the right fit for them, like the thing that you brought them into, Like we brought our kids into a

family with lots of kids. Maybe one of them would have thrived more as an only child. I don't know, you know, Like we brought them into a family that

has moved quite a bit. Maybe they would have preferred us stable growing up at the same house childhood like I had and my husband had all sorts of things like that, they don't get a choice in any of this, and the idea that our kids somehow like owe us birthday cards or Mother's Day flowers or anything, you know, anything like that, you know, it became clear to me like, oh,

they definitely don't. And I already felt that. I remember feeling like kind of uncomfortable that, like I didn't want them to feel like they had to do that for me, Like I didn't need that. I'm not. We talked about love languages. I don't know how they really are, but like, I don't gifts from my kids is not something that I need. Is not one of my love languages. So I guess I probably already felt that, but it just made it so clear to me, like, look, you forced

your kids to be here. You owe your kids what the best of you that you can give them, and right, you know, like whatever you can offer them, you owe that to them because you force them to be here. And in the same way, in reverse, they don't really owe you anything now they're here. They're a human, so We're going to say, look, you got to be a decent human. You owe that to humanity, right, you got to Oh, you owe that. You're here, you're stuck. You

got to be a decent human. And I'm going to say you owe that to all your fellow human beings. But the idea that your kids like owe you something is you know or that like, well, I was in labor for twelve hours, so you need to be you know, nicer to me. Like they didn't ask you to be in labor for twelve hours. They had nothing to do with it, Like they didn't ask you to make you know, you might feel like I'm working two jobs to sacrifice for my kids. Okay, that's good. I mean, I'm so

glad you're helping them. But they didn't ask you to do that, Like, they didn't ask for any of this. And so this idea that they would owe us something, oh, that kids owe parents, I think is totally wrong, and I think our society gets that wrong. We owe our kids and we will owe them for the rest of their lives, for the privilege of getting to raise them and see them grow and get the front row seat to their life. And it's worth it. It's worth owing them

to me. It's worth it. It's worth owing them for the rest of my life that I got to have this front row seat, because it is really freaking awesome to get to see your kids grow and learn and to get to see a human being come like I don't to see their shape taking form, to see like what they like, what they're interested in, the kind of questions they come up with, how their brain works. It's amazing.

It's so amazing and interesting and what a privilege that parents get to do this and be grateful to your kids for giving you the chance, you know, Like that's really the attitude to take.

how we had learned in a parenting class. It had been pointed out to us we've never understood this before that from eighteen on, your child determines the relationship unless you have some kind of financial tie like you're paying their their rent or their tuition or something, that the child really determines the relationship. And by that I mean they decide if you will see them, when you will see them, how long you will see them. And we

know that's true. You can even think about it like in your own life and think like, oh yeah, like if you have a partner or a spouse who doesn't like your family, you probably don't see your family as much.

You know, like you determine what that relationship is with your parents, and anyway, your kids can decide they don't like you and they don't want to be with you, and they might decide that if you've made life really streng ul for them and made them feel like they're never enough and they are not living up to you, this imagined person you had in your head or you know whatever, like for lots of reasons, I might go,

I don't like being with you. This is stressful, and they will cut off the relationship or not talk for years to their parent. I don't want that. I don't

want that at all. I mean, we know, these first eighteen years are intense, the intense parenting years, and the books focus on those eighteen years, the parenting books and the discussion, and it's you know, with reason, of course it makes sense, but we should also be aware that you're gonna have a relationship with your kids for another forty or sixty or more years after those eighteen years. Don't ruin it. Don't ruin those forty or sixty years

by being so stressed out in those eighteen years. Enjoy your kids, Enjoy hanging out with them. Like, notice how awesome your kids are. I guarantee they're awesome. It's like, again, it's this whole human being that's an not you, that's just interesting and they live with you and like, appreciate them, understand you, learn about them, figure out what they like, encourage their passions, help them be the best version of themselves, and try and make a good relationship. Because again, you

want this to extend. It would just break my heart if my kids just didn't want to hang out with me anymore and didn't want to come home. Ever, how heartbreaking would that be for a parent? And I think it would be heartbreaking for most parents. So anyway, and this stress, when we talk about parental stress, it's not just about relieving parents stress. That's real, but it's also about helping them improve their relationship with their kids because

the stress has real world consequences. It really can hurt your relationship with your kids.

from my kids' musical tastes. So I have a twelve, ten and seven year old, it's really well she's almost seven, but yeah, you get what I'm saying. It's more the older too. But like I have them to thank for knowing about Charlie Xcax and Brat and Sabrina Carpenter. I legitimately enjoy all of it. So I appreciate them giving me their perspective.

the stuff. It's a different process, but anyway, getting to see her vote and another daughter is voting for anyway, just seeing my kids who are living all over the world right now and sending our votes in and just feeling like we're still taking part in our democracy, and it made me really happy to see those. We went and bought stamps for the envelopes and we bought the Olympic stamps that showed that like the torch in the

balloon from the Paris Olympics. Anyway, that's the stamp. It was just like fun to like do.

they were three. If I hope my kids will be competitive enough to play sports through high school, how important is it for them to be good at the sport in elementary school or as a toddler, Sarah, is there anything you wish you did earlier with your daughter in gymnastics?

they're in high school. Like it's just so hard to know, So maybe just leaving things a little bit more open because you also just don't know. Maybe he'll develop talent later on, maybe he won't, maybe he'll hate sports, maybe

he'll be in choirir, maybe he'll know who knows. So I guess I think the better attitude is, like, I hope to be able to provide my kid with the tools and training to play sports in high school if they would like, and if opportunities come up for extra training and they are truly interested in Sure you could do extra when they're younger, but just be careful, because I think you don't want to be creating this thing where the kid feels like they have to please you

and they're doing it like to meet some agenda that they feel like, is that the right thing to do? You'd want to do what they want to be doing. And sports aren't great. But Laura's kids are doing lots of amazing things and being active and they aren't necessarily in organized sports. So remember that, you know, if you're thinking of sports as like a necessary part of a kind of like healthy life or something like, kids can

do movement in so many other different ways. They could be in dance, they could be just like going to the my friends kids go to Orange Theory with her. You know, they don't do sports, but like that's their way of getting Like there's no one right way of doing things, and I think that if you are trying to push your kids into some athlete type of category, it may or may not work. I mean, I consider

myself a pretty athletic adult. I did do competition share, which I consider a sport while in middle school in high school. But if you had tried to put me in a ball sport, like it just never like I'm terrible, I hate it, it would have been so sad. And yet I think that as an adult, like I'm pretty sporty and I don't think I missed out on anything by not doing that. So I guess just be careful

what you're wishing for and pushing. And at the same time, you are right that certain sports, and you mentioned soccer that's definitely one of them, do have a higher barrier to entry if you want to do them at specific levels later on. There are still rec leagues where you can do soccer at any age with no tryouts, so at least in my area there is. I do live in a very soccery area, but you know, a high schooler could join the Community Optimist club team having never

played before, and they would get to experience it. If you want your kid to be able to do club sports, they probably need to have some experience. But you asked about Annabelle, and I think that's actually relevant here. She personally, she doesn't regret not doing gymnastics earlier. She regrets not leading into dance because she was in ballet as a younger kid and then flounced out quit, didn't want anything to do with it, and then started like wat dance

mom and getting into dance. And she does do dance now, but not at a super competitive level, partly because she doesn't have as much of the background. Instead, she had more of a gymnastics background and ended up on a gymnastics team, not at a super high level, but still at a competitive level. And she wishes that she had stuck with dance. But do I regret anything. No, First of all, like as children go, everybody has different levels

of whether you can convince them of things. I don't want to get into specifics, but let's just say not a very She is her own person, Like, she's not going to do stuff that you are urging her just because you feel like it, And it would have been the saddest, most horrible battle if I had pushed it, and maybe she wouldn't be in anything at all if that was the case, Like I can't even imagine. So no, I don't think I did anything wrong. I always offered all the options. Do you want to trap for this?

Do you want to do that? But if the answer was like a hard no, then I think my job is to say, great, look into what else you can do? That's a long year.

about that too much. There are also some high school teams that take more kids. So we've had the for you know, the experience this fall of my fourteen year old joining the high school cross country team, which he had.

Maybe I shouldn't be saying this public had not really run that much prior to joining the team, But at this point, like two months into training in the season, I mean, by virtue of being fourteen and doing it every day, he's gotten a lot faster and developed a lot of endurance, definitely way faster than I am at this point. You know, is he going to be running varsity? I don't know that he ever will, but he likes

it and he likes being on the team. So there's still even if you don't necessarily have the training since age three thing going on, there might still be ways you can be involved in high school sports if you choose the right sport.