There were a few comments made on other threads that caused me to stop and think about the (mature) women I know who don't have children and I realized that percentage-wise I know far more older women skaters who are childless than I do among the general population. Considering I know only a few dozen older women skaters and hundreds of non-skaters, this struck me as maybe more than pure coincidence. Is there a connection between not having had kids and skating as a (supposedly mature) adult?

I knew as a teenager that children were very unlikely; now in my 50's I HOPE it's unlikely - LOL! Any connection to skating? Maybe financial, maybe "free time", maybe something to do with self-reliance? I do enjoy being among the teenage girls and listening to the chatter - reminds me of my own teen years - maybe surrogate daughters?

Anybody else want to comment?

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Dianne
(A.O.S.S.? Got it BAD! )

Most of the mature women skaters I know either don't have kids or their kids are grown up. The few who don't fit this pattern have kids who skate.

I think it's largely a time thing. I don't know if you saw the thread in the other section about whether people's kids are doing too much, but if you look at the list of the activities those kids are doing and then imagine a similar schedule in some sport other than skating, there's no way a mum would have time for skating herself, unless she didn't work and could do it while the kids were at school. Now it's entirely possible that there are loads of mums like that at my rink - but I'd never meet them.

In fact, I can't off the top of my head think of ANY mum I know with school age kids who skates but whose kids don't.

I skated a little while my kids were still young and my husband was alive. After he died it was too overwhelming to work and take care of the kids and skate...then I got started again but my daughter really got into it and there just wasn't the money for both of us to skate so I stopped again. Now they are older, I've got a new job and a little more money.

j

We started after our daughter got hooked when she took a learn-to-skate class via her school. She gave up skating when she went to university, but we carried on....

There are several "skating families" at our rink where one or both parents skate alongside their children.

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Mrs Redboots
~~~~~~~~
I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

There are four adult skaters at our rink (used to be five). Three are childless, and that includes me.

One woman with children skates here, and she is also very active in all levels of the community including hosting a weekly radio show about her other passion of astronomy. She's a superwoman.

The other male skater who used to skate with his daughter fell fairly hard, and was discouraged by his wife from doing much skating. He still finds time for an occasional public session with his daughter though.

Having had brothers and sisters who raised families, I can see that child rearing takes an extreme amount of energy and time. No wonder there aren't many skating moms and dads.

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Bill Schneider

There are 3 of us over 40 who skate, 2 with no children one with several children. All of us skated as children, and just enjoy the sport, my friend with children came back to the sport once her youngest was in HS. I know several skaters with and without children but only a few with children who skate as well.

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Who me? Couldn't be....
http://www.youtube.com/bouldersk8r

Not me! I started as an adultbefore having Milo, skated with him until 7 months pregnant, had him, got back on the ice and am now pregnant again. Although I'm basically just teaching tots and practicing stroking drills at this point -- I'm helping coach the Synchro team as I won't be skating the rest of the season with them and I've stopped jumping and spinning entirely. Baby is due September 11, 2007 and, at 14 weeks, the little bugger is a pretty active one already.

Hmm not much of a correlation at our rink. I would never have started skating if it wasn't for my kids. I was trying to be a good sport and joined group lessons with the rest of the family, never could have afforded it when I was growing up so never really considered looking into skating. Didn't like it when I started, now I dream about it
Lyle

We have about 30 adult skaters over the age of 25 in our area. The vast majority of them do not have children. I can only think of a handful that DO have kids, and the kids vary in age from preschool to college age. And in my experience, when a female adult skater gets pregnant and has a child, the chances of her coming back to the ice any time soon are pretty slim.

Speaking for myself, I'm sure that I wouldn't have the time and energy to able to rear a child, work, and skate. I could probably handle 2 at a time, but not all 3.

We probably have just as many skating adults out here as skaternum says, if not more... some of them are married, many are in gay relationships and in probably the majority of the cases, don't have the financial and time committment means to having kids either thru surrogate or adoption means.

For me, I don't have the energy, time or financial means to have a child. Plus, moving is not really an option for either my husband or me b/c of our work.

As for having a child and then coming back on the ice...well, so far I have one woman who has come back to skate, though not as consistently as she would like. (i.e. she probably will never compete and she's skating since she's also a coach.) The other person now is either close to having her child or already has her child. We're all waiting to see if she will be back skating again, but this skater is also not a competing skater herself and wasn't even making the commitment to put in enough time or money to skate even when she was childless, so I doubt she will be back as well too.

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Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

It's a time and money thing for me. We were trying to get pregnant but when you don't get married until your late 30's and there are also financial stresses, it just isn't that easy. I'm 42 now and it still hasn't happened, so I'm just looking at the bright side and telling myself that if I had a baby I wouldn't have the time or money to keep skating. Gotta love that silver lining. . .

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

I tell myself that I make a better AUNTIE to all the little kids in the world than I would a mommy...

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Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

Hi All!
I have a second grader and I do compete. I started skating as an adult before he was born around 15 years ago. I can't skate as often as I used to (5-6) days/week. Now I skate 3days/wk, I still make progress but more slowly.And I have to skate the early morning freestyles or right after I put him on the bus. And I don't travel to compete too much. It just gets too expensive.

It's true, there are not many skating moms here either with school age kids. Fortunately my family is supportive ,but if I had more than one I don't think I could do it due to exhaustion and finances. I do work, but part-time.

ITA. The mums I know who skate alongside their kids, are 80 percent housewives, with high-earning spouse; so they tend to skate during the daytime. The remaining 20 percent generally have an occupation such as teaching, where they can work locally, with flexible hours.

I'm probably going to start a family (well a small one!) in the next couple of years, and hope to return to the ice.

I doubt very much it'll be more than three times a week (and that will be if I'm very lucky), but IMHO it's important for everyone to have some sort of 'escape'. Without going in to too much detail, as far as I am concerned my husband has had enough support from me over the years, I've made plenty of sacrifices, so it'll be his turn to pay for my skating and he can do the babysitting as well!

S xxx

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There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness"

I figure since I have two stepsons and the elder one is 15 and already very. . . ahem. . . "sociable", I'll probably have step grandkids before too long, LOL! And to them, I'll be as much of a "grandma" as if I were their biological grandma, so that will be nice (and it's so much easier to be a grandmother than a mother!)

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

I'm an oddity, I have three school age children, work full time, have a spouse with a demanding job and my kids figure skate. They also play hockey

I've only ever run into one other adult skater like me she has three kids also and she beats me in competition on a regular basis but we're the only ones usually who have their own family cheering section.

I've been running through the entry list for Canadian Adult Championships, there is a huge age gap, between the ages of 30 -45. There are some skaters, but discussion at the rink was that was the age gap when skaters take time off to have kids.

Well I'm 47, with a full time job and have a 9 (nearly 10) year old daughter who also skates. If she decided to stop skating, it would make it very difficult for me to keep going. Right now we attend usually 3 sessions a week.

Most of the other adult women skaters I know have re grown up kids, or the younger ones skate too. Those whose kids don't skate bring them to the rink, and they don't get a good skate because they are trying to keep an eye on what the kids are doing or the kids keep wanting their attention.

Skating is a time-consuming, expensive sport for anyone. Having 2 of us doing it makes it doubly expensive.

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Karen

I skate - therefore I am

I'm an adult skater who has children and a busy life. I didn't skate as a child and took up the sport about 7 years ago. I didn't skated seriously until about 4 years ago though. I do find it a challenge to devote myself to skating the way some adult folks do at the rink but I try to do my best. Having a family makes many other things more important to devote myself to. It used to bother me heariing how much others skate and how many lessons they get. I have come to terms with this however and have learned to focus on the time and lessons I do get. Because I don't test or compete, this has been a choice, I'm comfortable with this approach for me. Maybe someday when my life is at a different place I can change my focus. I have heard of adults making the choice not to have another child or any at all because of skating. I've also heard of folks spending more than their comfortable with on lessons and ice time. As much as I love skating these aren't choices I would be willing to make. I guess it's all about choices. Saying all that, I do try my best at this sport. I didn't even know how to stop when I started, =-), and now I've learned some skills off the gold tests for adults. =-)

teresa

Life is about choices and what is right for you.

well, I'm childless, but not by choice. I know I have more time than some friends who quit skating to raise children, but I also know of skate moms who became skater moms from being at the rink with their kids.

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Champagne in 2005, 2008, 2009 - who's next out of the pre-bronze club...?

Wang chung!

I quit skating when my oldest (now 28) was on the way. I might have come back to skating sooner if any of my kids had taken to it, but I had to wait till my Granddaughter came along to get a skater out of the lot.

Myself, I came back to skating just over three years ago when all my children and all but one of my stepchildren were adults.

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If you keep your eyes on God, you can walk on water.

I am childless, and like a few others on here not totally through choice and unlikely to change, but hey that's life! The majority of my skating friends do not have children, one at my rink does and she is desperate for her 2/3 year old daughter to take it up and takes her to the rink and the poor thing gets bored.

I have two teenage step-daughters and they will just have to be enough!!

I must say the fact I am unlikely to have children used to bother me, but since taking up skating I have had something to focus my attention and energy on I just don't really think about it. In fact, I was thinking the other day I would have to give up skating if I fell pregnant!!

Mom ice danced when I was about 8 and she danced all through my highschool on national level (ballroom dancing) and international. Of course, this meant that I had to do the entire housekeeping from age 11. And we lived in pretty bad neighbourhoods cuz all the money went into dancing even though mom made pretty good bucks (that is, euros, or actually, guldens back then)
I don't think most kids would've put up with that the way I did (but, now I'm 21 and mom's paying my skating so hey it's all fair). I guess that's why there's little moms who skate.

I'm the one who started this whole thing with my comment on the other thread about skating moms constantly coming up to me and asking me, which kid is mine skating out there???((*)(_)*(&*^*&%&^$^&(%^&$%^%*(

There is no kid of mine skating out there, except me!

Here's the thing though...my pairs partner is a single dad with 4 kids. I have none. However, we both skate as much as full-time adults possibly can. We are both totally broke at this point, but don't let the $$$ thing stand in the way of the biggest joy in our lives, which is skating pairs.

On the one hand, I really wanted a family, but couldn't have one, but then I see how having kids has turned a lot of adults that I know into less then functioning human beings. But then again, these people sware by their kids and couldn't imagine life with out them (I don't know what this feels like, other than...I can't imagine living life without my cats. I don't know what else to use as a comparison of what that might feel like.) Okay, for all of the parents out there who are ready to scream at me...Okay...it must feel like "I can't imagine living life without my cats, but a million times worse" (at least, that's what I'm supposed to understand, but I really don't.) I'll go out on a limb here and say that I think that having children is over rated.

Yea, and I can't understand for the life of me why little Sally Sue has to have skating lessons, piano lessons, soccer games, gymnastics, and play the flute??? Why does mom have to turn into a professional chauffer? Can't the kid do one thing and do it really well??? What is up with that???

The thing about kids is, they don't wanna do 1 thing really well.

I was forced as a kid to do 1 thing really well, that is play the piano for hours and hours every day and I quit when I was like 12 or 13 cuz I just couldn't take the pressure.

Kids need a bit of everything to feel well.