What Season is it Anyway?

I have written about this before, but it seems to be an issue that keeps coming up with our family.  And I am sure it will continue in the future.  Our kids play multiple sports.  My wife and I have chosen as parents to allow them to play a sport per season.  When that season is over, we don't feel that at such a young age they should be playing a sport out of season.  In today's world, the definition of "season" is becoming harder and harder to do.  We are not judging parents who allow this, but we want our kids to feel the freedom to play whatever sport they want in that season and still have time to be kids.  Parents who allow this are not doing anything wrong in our eyes, not at all, but are focusing so much attention on one thing for their kids. 

We feel that when they get to around 10-13 years of age, if they want to stop playing the different sports they do and want to specialize on one or two, then they can choose that.  I would like for them to play multiple sports in high school because the odds that they will get to do anything past high school are slim.  I want them to have memories of playing more than just one sport and dealing with the success and failure that different sports provide.

Don't get me wrong, if one or both of them start to show a love and an advanced skill in one sport, we would let them stop playing multiple sports at some time.  Especially if it could make us money in the future or a free scholarship, we would highly consider it as long as our children love that sport.  Does that make us hypocritical?  Maybe, but our kids will not play hundreds of games before they get to high school in any sport.  What we really want is for them to log hundreds of hours in the backyard riding their bikes, playing with their friends and enjoying their youth.  They will have plenty of time to be working on just one thing when they are older.