AITA for telling my teenager she can't quit the sport she's done for 9 years?
me (44M), two teenagers. my daughter (16F) has swum competitively since she was seven. club, meets, 5am four days a week, the whole thing. in june she said she wants to stop. i said finish the season. she said she means now. my position was she's tired, it's summer, everyone wants to quit in summer, and if she stops now she'll regret nine years in about two years when her friends are still swimming. her position, which she said calmly and which is the reason i'm posting, is that she's been wanting to stop since she was thirteen and she kept going because she could tell how much i liked it. my wife says she told me this two years ago and i said she was in a phase. i made her finish the season. she did. she was fine, she was polite, and she hasn't been in a pool since july 14th and she's not going to be.
What People Are Saying
Coached kids for years. The ones who quit at 16 having wanted to quit at 13 rarely come back to the sport, but they do come back to the parent. Give it time and don't mention swimming.
YTA and the giveaway is she said it calmly. Kids who are tired shout. Kids who decided three years ago are calm.
i've read that sentence about forty times since june. i keep thinking she was being kind to me while she said it and that's worse.
YTA on the season. Also — she finished it. She did the thing you asked, properly, and then stopped. That's a kid with more integrity than the situation deserved.
ESH is too generous. But nine years of 5am is nine years of you driving her there, and she knows that too. Let her tell you when she's ready.
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@tvance_sends_it+261
"She kept going because she could tell how much you liked it" is a devastating thing for a 16 year old to be able to say out loud, and she said it kindly.