“When I was eight, my main life goal was to be a tap dancer. There was only one problem – we couldn’t afford the lessons.”

By NAT HAWK

When I was eight, my main life goal was to be a tap dancer. I desperately wanted to take up tap-dancing, and I had great faith in my own ability to take it beyond my childhood and into a career.

There was only one problem – we couldn’t afford the lessons.

I begged, I pleaded, I offered to swap out my pocket money for tap shoes. But we didn’t have the spare cash to give to another term’s worth of dancing lessons, and I had to give up on the tap-dancing dream.

The good part of this story was that I really wasn’t missing out. I already did ballet, jazz and musical theatre lessons, as well as weekly swimming lessons and the odd tennis school holiday camp.

But I was a lucky kid. A kid whose parents could afford to say yes to some things, and no to other things.

There are a lot of kids out there whose parents have to say no to everything. They’re not playing footy, or cricket, or soccer, or doing karate or dancing lessons. They’re not playing any sport – just because so much of it has become so prohibitively expensive.

A few weeks ago, a recent poll in Canada made news when it found that a third of Canadian kids, aged between three and 17, don’t participate in organised sport because of the equipment and registration fees involved – 61% of parents said that enrolment fees were the main issue, and 52% said equipment costs were holding them back.

The parents who could afford organised sport reported that they were spending about $1000 per child, per year – mostly on soccer, swimming and basketball.

Low income families are less likely to play sport outside of school.

It’s a similar story here in Australia. In 2011, a South Australian study by academic Carol Maher found that children from low-income families are far less likely to play sport outside of school – per day, children from low-income families were getting 25 less minutes of physical activity than children from families with more money.

I had a chat to four different parents, each from different socio-economic backgrounds, to find out just how much they’re spending on sport per child – and whether or not they find the cost to be prohibitive. Each parent told a very different story, but each agreed on two things:

1) That most kids don’t just run around in the park anymore – it’s really either organised and registered sport, or nothing (outside of school, anyway); and

2) When parents are financially struggling, organised kids sport is the first thing to go.

KYLIE: Has two kids – one boy (Dec), one girl (Cam).

KATE: Has three kids, two girls (Annabel and Sally) and a boy (Ben).

BERN: Has two boys (Jack and Sam) and a girl (Maddie).

JO: Has two boys and one girl.

Has the cost of sport ever prevented you from enrolling your kids in a sport? Did it prevent you from playing sport when you were young?

And in other sports news from the week…

– The second World Youth Olympics have been held in China, and Australian Brittany Dutton managed to win Australia’s first gold medal in the women’s triathlon – and our Australian Rugby Sevens team also managed to score themselves a gold medal in their grand final game against Canada. Congratulations to everyone competing at the Youth Olympics.

– GREAT news from Football Federation Australia this week – our women’s football teams have received a grant from FIFA, and will now be investigating a national and girls development program to help more girls get into football.

– The Pan Pacific championship heats were also held on the Gold Coast on Thursday, and some of our Aussie swimmers have managed to make their way into the finals, including Emily Seebohm and Madeline Groves. Congratulations, girls!

– This isn’t strictly sports news, but dual Australian cricket/soccer player (and general all-round champion), Ellyse Perry, has just become engaged to be married. Her boyfriend of two years, rugby union player Matt Toomua, proposed on Thursday. Congratulations, Ellyse. If the two of you have babies, I imagine they will be ridiculously good at sport.