This is an aspect of US culture I've never understood.
Would it be insulting for an ignorant European to ask 'why'?
The whole fixation with these sorts of childrens sports, from little league to cheerleading, seems such amazingly conformist brainwashing. But then I think I must be missing something...
Not insulting at all. And we don't generally go in for the whole team sports thing, except for Little League. (There are parents whose lives run from soccer season to basketball season to baseball season and back.) We also don't take Little League very seriously (unlike some parents I've seen over the years--I could tell some real horror stories): I don't think any of our teams has ever had a winning season and we don't care.
Basically, its a chance for kids to socialize outside of school (which given how many parents work, doesn't happen as much as it did when I was growing up), a chance for kids to learn to work as a team, and a chance to learn good sportsmanship. And also, baseball is a team sport: unfortunately, kids don't play sandlot baseball anymore, so Little League is their only opportunity to learn the game.
OK - that sounds a lot more sane that it sounded at first.
Any insight into why people do take this so seriously would be welcome.
I do wonder if playing team sport does actually help with childrens' development. At school I found most team sport was just an excuse for 'leaglized' bullying (but then I did go to a school which played rugby) and did very little to encourage sportsmanship...
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Would it be insulting for an ignorant European to ask 'why'?
The whole fixation with these sorts of childrens sports, from little league to cheerleading, seems such amazingly conformist brainwashing. But then I think I must be missing something...
From:
no subject
Basically, its a chance for kids to socialize outside of school (which given how many parents work, doesn't happen as much as it did when I was growing up), a chance for kids to learn to work as a team, and a chance to learn good sportsmanship. And also, baseball is a team sport: unfortunately, kids don't play sandlot baseball anymore, so Little League is their only opportunity to learn the game.
From:
no subject
Any insight into why people do take this so seriously would be welcome.
I do wonder if playing team sport does actually help with childrens' development. At school I found most team sport was just an excuse for 'leaglized' bullying (but then I did go to a school which played rugby) and did very little to encourage sportsmanship...