How do you feel about the often repeated claim that athletics are for children?

[Kblaze8855]

You’ve probably heard or read it 1000 times. They’re playing a child’s game. It’s said of everything. Basketball football and baseball. Whatever. It said often dismissively by people who don’t like how much money they get paid to do it or that it draws so much attention from things deemed more important or worthwhile to be doing. Sometimes it’s even said by the people who play the games(often to score brownie points with the idiotic public or to downplay the pain of losing).

We can go ahead and ignore that both basketball and football were created and first played by adults. The first basket ever scored was scored by a 25 year old. I felt like I should mention it but it isn’t really central to what I’m asking.

What I am asking is this…

What makes getting off your ass and doing something active with other humans childish? Because we call it playing? Do you consider any other physical activity done for its own sake inherently childish? What makes physical exercise childish? Should adults only move around as much as required by work?

When I go to the gym am I being a responsible adult looking out for his health when I’m warming up on the treadmill and lifting weights but being a child when I walk over to the court 30 feet away?

That would be ridiculous. Getting off your ass and staying active for its own sake is one of the more responsible things you can do with an otherwise lazy afternoon.

so what exactly makes it childish? Are we so beat down by life and the expectation of misery that we should all embrace it and try not to enjoy anything active we do because it’s “playing”?

And if people like watching it, what makes it a less worthwhile avenue of employment than say….figuring out what to add to sweet potato waffle fries to make them crisp up in the air fryer? What makes putting a ball in a basket or hitting one less respect worthy than coming up with a new font for the advertising of some company? Why is it a less worthwhile pursuit than having a career putting tint on car windows or selling cigars or making soy wax candles, or any of the other million things people do without being called childish?

You can say the world doesn’t need sports…but does the world need vanilla beans? Ear rings? The piano? Does the world need bagged grass seed? Scented lotion? The world got along just fine without every single app that exists but we don’t call creating them a childish pursuit. The world doesn’t “need” 90% of the shit in it but the people at the top of providing most things aren’t called out for it.

The issue is the money I assume. People are bitter so many people(often including themselves which is hilarious to me) support these people they can get rich off it without giving what they consider an equal return to society. That’s where most of the hate comes from. But I feel like you should be able to express your problem with it better than to say the whole idea of athletics is childish.

I don’t see why playing basketball is any more immature than than sitting at a bar with the same friends. Neither of them is of any value to society but one is of value to the body.

Why respect one more as as activity for adults than the other?

[Wardell Curry]

It's a combination of different things for different people. People getting old and physically unable to compete, people growing up and losing interest, growing up and getting jaded, and the fact that children are basically the only ones playing @ sub 30 years old.

I care considerably less about watching sports than I did when I was 20.

This topic also reminds me though of something I've often pondered. How much does alleged maturity correlate with a loss in energy and zest for life? In other words, if you could magically give the youth of a 15 year old body and energy level to an 80 year old, how differently would the 80 year old behave? Certainly not the same. Hard to say.

[Kblaze8855]

Kids are the only ones playing at sub 30? So people don’t play ball 18-30 or did I misunderstand your point?

I feel like I had to because that was a way more active time to play for me than after 30.

[Wardell Curry]

I was trying to say that I think that people under 30 are children, generally speaking. Obviously it's different for everyone and some people grow up super early but I think today's American experience is that of someone not being an adult until they're 30. A man's brain doesn't even finish forming until 25 or something.

[Wardell Curry]

The average age in the NBA is 26. That's a kid, regardless of how their body looks. Just my experience.

80% of the NBA is under 30.

[Wardell Curry]

The NFL is even worse I think with approximately one roster's worth of over 30s.

[Kblaze8855]

I….am not calling a 28 year old a child(unless I’m intentionally insulting one). I don’t even like when teens around me use their age as an excuse for behavior. If you’re old enough to form an argument based on your youth as an excuse you’re old enough to know not to be a dick.

[Wardell Curry]

You're right, of course. But legally we define a child as up to 17 years and 364 days old. And at 18 they're adults? Not in reality. It varies from person to person. 21 year olds can legally start to drink, but they are absolutely not adults.

30 is just the nice round arbitrary number of having that brain fully formed and just enough life experience to not act a fool hopefully.

[iamgine]

Because it's something lots of kids like to play.

The same are said for pro gamers. They're playing kid's game (while earning $$$).

It is what it is.

[Kblaze8855]

If being an adult is determined by your behavior or mind state, there are 70 year old children, and that just isn’t a path worth going down. When you’re grown, I hold you responsible for your actions. Continuing to be irresponsible way past adulthood doesn’t actually make you a child. It makes you pathetic, but it doesn’t make you a child.

[Wardell Curry]

If being an adult is determined by your behavior or mind state, there are 70 year old children, and that just isn’t a path worth going down.

There are 70 year old children. They're rare, but they're out there.

I'll leave it at this since it's obvious the outcome of this conversation is just us disagreeing but do you think a 50 year old man sleeping with an 18 year old 'female' is sleeping with a woman or a girl? 99.99% of cases or more, an 18 year old is a child, regardless of the law.

[Kblaze8855]

Because it's something lots of kids like to play.

The same are said for pro gamers. They're playing kid's game (while earning $$$).

It is what it is.

this is one of those things that sounds true, but if we could get the real numbers, I’m not sure it is. Kind of like reading comic books. I can see why someone would think it’s an industry supported mostly by kids but I don’t actually know any kids who read comic books. the big-time gamer kids I’ve known continue to be as adults. It’s entirely possible and maybe even likely there are more video game playing adults than there are children.

It isn’t 10 year olds arguing the morality of using unfairly effective dribble combinations on 2K if you look it up on Twitter.

[Kblaze8855]

There are 70 year old children. They're rare, but they're out there.

I'll leave it at this since it's obvious the outcome of this conversation is just us disagreeing but do you think a 50 year old man sleeping with an 18 year old 'female' is sleeping with a woman or a girl? 99.99% of cases or more, an 18 year old is a child, regardless of the law.

I “feel” like my 18 year old niece and her older sister are children but my feelings don’t determine anyone else’s adulthood.

and no, there are not 70 year old children. There are 70 year olds who behave irresponsibly, and perhaps childishly. Doesn’t make them children anymore than unusually mature 10 year olds are adults. I have 50 year old family who acts just like they did at 15 and have never so much as held down a job. He acts like a kid but if he actually were…it wouldn’t be acting. I wouldn’t expect him to be any different. Not actually being a child is why he’s so pathetic.

I obviously understand your concept, and I’m sure I myself have made such statements speaking figuratively, but it doesn’t feel like you’re trying to do that right now.

[Wardell Curry]

Consciousness isn’t an on or off thing. There are levels to it. And people arrive at different levels of it at vastly varying ages if they ever arrive at all.

[Im Still Ballin]

Basketball isn't an essential service but entertainment is an important part of mental health. Essential services are the systems that we rely on for our everyday needs. They include but are not limited to, electricity, communications, water, and transport.

Supply chains, being the distribution of essential goods and services across the country, are critically important to our economy. Working supply chains deliver petrol to service stations, fresh food to supermarket shelves, household waste to landfill, and essential pharmaceuticals to hospitals.