'AITA for refusing to support my son's participation in a sport he's not into, but my wife is?' UPDATED

"AITA for refusing to continue being the one supporting my son's participation in a sport he is not that enthusiastic about, but my wife is?"

My wife (40F) grew up as a competitive athlete (squash), playing through college on an NCAA championship team. Her whole family is very into competitive sports. I (47M), on the other hand, never had much interest. That's not to say that I was a couch potato. I was and have always been a frequent gym-goer and into road cycling and skiing (for fun, not competition).

We have a son (11M). My wife put him into squash lessons/clinics starting at age 7. She's now started signing him up for tournaments. Even though this is mostly her doing, I am the one taking him to and from lessons/clinics, driving to tournaments, etc.

I'm also essentially the person financially responsible for our entire lifestyle (with my separate money I bought our houses, cars, pay all the utilities, insurance, school tuition). My wife make close to 6-figures, gets to spend it all on whatever she wants and still usually has approximately zero dollars in her bank account.

I'm not complaining about this (my income and wealth is multiples of hers), but this will be relevant later.

I've noticed that our son seems kind of down when I have to take him to squash and more down after he's done it. He has a lot of other interests: he loves coding, he plays guitar, he likes to ski, he likes bouldering, and between that and school (he is a conscientious and good student) time is very scarce. The same is true for me.

But both my son and I are finding our ability to do these other activities is being interfered with by my wife's insistence about how much time goes into squash. I should say that my son is okay at it, but he is never going to play Division One college, so it's not like college admissions/scholarships are in play here.

I think it is great if he can play the game socially later in life, but he could achieve that spending 25% of the time on it that he does. And certainly, we wouldn't need to burn whole weekends on tournaments. I've asked my wife to pick up more of the slack for shuttling him to squash stuff, but she always says she has work she needs to do that makes it impossible.

Recently, my wife signed him up for a tournament which conflicted with a bouldering event he wanted to do. He was sad. I asked him, "do you want to keep doing this much squash?" He said that he didn't, but he didn't want to disappoint his mom. I said I'd talk to her about it. She was resistant to letting him do less, saying that he would appreciate it once he "pushes through."

I told her that she needs to address this with our son and that in the meantime, I was done dedicating MY time and money to squash. If she wanted him to do more than a lesson or two a week, she would have to bring him and pay for it out of her own money. And if our son refused to cooperate with her in doing more squash than he wants, I would not enforce any consequences.

She says that it isn't fair: she doesn't have the same money or time available that I have. I said, if you feel this passionate about our son's squash, then you need to put your money and time where you mouth is and not just decree that our son needs to do it and I need to be the chauffeur.

She thinks I am being an AH about it and ab#$ing my greater wealth and more flexible schedule (actually it is not more flexible, I am just way more efficient at getting work done and being able to work hunched over a laptop at the squash courts) to "get what I want". Wondering what the collective wisdom of the internet thinks?

The internet had a lot to say about the situation.

Artneedsmorefloof wrote:

YTA if you let your wife force your son into unwanted activities whether she pays for it or not. Your son is 11, and he wants to pursue what he is interested in. If he is not interested in being a competitive squash player, no one should be forcing him or guilting him into being one. Do an internet search on "forcing children to play sports" and see the harm it does and the damage it does to the parent-child relationship.

Part of being a good parent is providing a safe environment to your children for your children to learn to make decisions and consequences as well as teaching the other skills necessary for becoming an independent adult. At 11, your son should be deciding which of two competing activities he wants to participate in. His exploration of his interests should be driven by him.

It's completely reasonable to insist that he has some form of physical activity and that if he signs up for an activity he attends and completes the session, but that is about it. What type of activity should be up to him. You should have been checking in with and stopping this a long time ago, OP.

OP responded:

Yeah, I feel like I was too slow in addressing this. But in fairness, before he was 10, he didn't really develop interests on his own. Now that he is older and more mature, it is very clear he has more passion for certain activities than others. And only now that school is getting more intense and his other interests deeper does he experience that a heavy investment of time in squash will preclude other activities he prefers.

So I've only seen him start to get upset about it in the last year or so. Probably should have address this immediately, but in my own defense, I can say that I am maybe a year late, not four years late.

Stolpskott71 wrote:

Honestly, I think you are approaching this from COMPLETELY the wrong direction. The issue is not who gets to pay for what or who gets to be the taxi service. The issue is that your son does not enjoy playing squash, and is only doing it to avoid disappointing his mother.

She was a good squash player, and got a good scholarship out of it. Okay. But your son won't, according to both his inclination and your comments about him not going to a Division 1 school.

You and your son need to sit down with your wife, and have a serious talk about how she is forcing him to live the life that she wants, and she is using her own passion and past experiences as the justification, as if he is a "mini-mom".

He is not, and he will come to hate the sport of squash and resent her for the fact that she is forcing him to be the person she wants him to be, irrespective of his interest (or lack of) in her plan.

OP responded:

The irony is that if he did one lesson or clinic a week and no more, he would be quite happy. He doesn't hate squash. He hates that he has to do so much squash that he can't do everything else he loves. So easing up on him would get my wife a son who will have a lifelong enjoyment of casual squash. Not easing up, though, I agree, will get her a kid who hates squash.

Adorable-Cupcake-599 wrote:

It will also get her a kid that resents his mother for forcing him to spend all his time on squash.

Roughly six weeks later, OP shared an update.

Update: As I anticipated, when I pulled my money and time from supporting squash, she was either unwilling (my view) or unable (her view) to step up. Obviously, I saw that as a good thing, since I feel my son wants (appropriately) to do less squash and more of his other interests (bouldering, skiing, guitar being the three big extracurriculars). But in the hopes of getting to a more consensual outcome.

I told my wife that I would continue to take my son to one clinic and one lesson a week (no tournaments!) for the interim, if she agreed to go to a bouldering session, to the drop-off or pick-up of a ski lesson (we go to a vacation home to ski over our spring break in March -- just happened) and to a guitar lesson and at each to speak to the instructor to get their perspective on our son's interest and aptitude.

Then she could compare it to how he seems to feel about / perform in squash. She agreed, and now that we are back from skiing, she's done all three.

The result was pretty much as I expected. All three teachers mentioned that he seemed incredibly passionate about the activity and that he was extremely coachable. The bouldering and ski teachers were clear he is probably not going to be some sort of champion, aptitude-wise, though the guitar teacher calls him one of his most talented students.

In comparison, his squash coach says that he needs to bring more intensity to his efforts. Even to my squash-favoring wife, it was clear that her contention that he needs to just "push through" with squash does not match up with his immediate and enduring interest in and passion for his other activities.

We've talked about it together and my wife agreed she'd follow our son's lead on squash. We asked him what his idea outcome is and he said that he'd like to continue squash at a low intensity, so he can play it socially. He wants to do clinic once a week and once a week to play with his mom.

He said that being able to play with her would be one of the main reasons for him to keep playing and that he had been disappointed she hadn't done it much. She said she didn't realize that but that it made her happy that he wants to play with her and she will make time. So we have what seems to be a solution -- no more tournaments, one clinic a week and periodic mom-and-son hitting sessions.

The internet kept their thoughts coming.

Amori_A_Splooge wrote:

How she was a competitive squash player and not playing with him or being his coach from the beginning is beyond me.

OP responded:

I think the source of the problem is her job, or at least her approach to it. It is very consuming and that has led her to turn to me to do more of the parenting than is good for our son or for her. Seeing our son doing activities that she really had not been involved in before made her realize the degree to which work had taken her away from parenting.

Substantialgood4102 wrote:

When does your son just get to be a kid? I don't mean sitting around playing video games. I mean hanging out with friends without constant coaching? Just to breathe. Childhood should not look like a job.

OP responded:

He is the one who asked to do all these activities (except for squash). That's just the kind of kid he is. The bouldering is also something where he does it as part of a group of other kids on a "team", so it serves as a social time for him.

Substantialgood4102 wrote:

Does he have any down time? How many days a week do the activities consume? How much time do you spend with him? Other than in the car running from one activity to the next. These are things to think about. Not suggesting becoming a helicopter parent. Just being apart of his life.

OP responded:

Climbing is one weekend morning. We drive to a nearby city like 45 minutes, he does he climbing team, I work out at same gym, we go get lunch together and drive home. Squash now 90 mins one evening a week. Guitar lesson 1hr 2x a week and he practices maybe an hour a day.

He usually does something with friends all day one weekend day. His school is relatively light on homework, so he gets his share of video games, Airsoft, etc. The problem was that squash was taking up like 3 evenings a week and some tournaments that killed whole weekends.