Less Young People Camping?
It has been a belief of mine for a long time that each generation has it “tougher” than the previous generations. My parents were what I consider to be “middle class.” Mom had her own beauty shop...
Forum Discussion
mich800 wrote:
Why the assumption that sports or extra curricular activities are NOT family time. Seems a little short sighted. We do the various sports because we want to and enjoy them. I cannot speak for anyone else but I have not sacrificed any family time as a result of these events...It is family time.
I'm not saying it's not family time, read my post after the one you quoted. Basically, I have several friends that do competitive dance and travel sports. Those things exhaust family finances and vacation time; which is why they don't camp.
We participate in many sports together as a family. We enjoying skiing every Thursday evening in the winter and swimming together every Wednesday in the summer. We also frequently do archery or play ball in our backyard. My kids have done soccer, dance, archery, karate, floor hockey, ice skating, gymnastics, etc. I'm not against sports in itself, it's just sometimes outrageously expensive with a huge time commitment and parents are out of money and time and can't camp. They have admitted as much to me. Maybe it's just my area where these travel sports and competitive dance is so popular. But, even if it's not a travel sport, it seems almost everyone I've asked to camp with us in April-June has said, "I can't, my son has a soccer/baseball game every Saturday." Then the end of July-August, it's football and band practice. So, they don't camp.....which is what I thought the OP was getting at. Why younger people don't camp in my area is because their kids are too busy which makes the parents too busy to go anywhere.
