Extracurriculars for children?

While doing some (ugh) yard work (ugh) tonight, I witnessed my neighbor playing catch with his 6yo son who is on a softball team. Or whatever you call it that a young kid plays that involves a ball, a bat, and running bases. Is it actually called baseball? I know it's not T-ball, anyway...I digress.

It got me thinking, as I do a few times a year, about whether we should start Padraic in any activities between now and kindergarten. By 3.5yo our neighbors' son had already been in T-ball, and also had swimming lessons. And then when he turned 4yo he did spring soccer, and this year and last year have been base/soft/whatever-ball in addition to the continuing swimming lessons. Comparing Padraic's life to his friend next-door's makes me feel like our little guy is getting shafted. I mean, we've meant to take him to swim lessons but (a) I hate swimming bc it involves being cold and wet (I get this from my mom, people...she'll tell you) and (b) Ken was thinking of taking him but hasn't been able to figure out a time when he could commit to several weeks of lessons on weeknights. So we've taken Padraic to exactly nothing so far in his formative years.

Then I get to thinking, Hey, I didn't have a single extracurricular activity until I was in junior high, and I don't think I'm horrendously damaged by that. (I made up for it in high school by participating simultaneously in nine extracurricular activites. My poor parents.) I guess, then, that when I think it over, I lean more toward the letting kids be kids side of things. It's tempting to let him try 4yo soccer next spring, especially when his godfather is a soccer coach, but we'll see. Besides the time commitment that I don't want to make unless we can, um, commit, I admit that I am loathe to meet "those" parents that you hear and read about. You know the ones I mean. The ones who think their little Timmy is going to be an all-star and your little talentless-by-comparison twerp is messing it up for everyone. Oy. I think we'll just wait until Padraic can have some input into what he wants to do. After all, the activities would be for him, not for us.