Honestly the choice to hold back a child for acedemic or athletic reasons is up to the kid and his parents if you think that this is horrible and unfair then holdback your kid. When your kid is grown up and you are old this 5 year span in his life won't matter that much. At the end of the day arguing over trivial matters likes this on a forum is a waste of your time.
Straw-man argument like most holdback apologists reasons.
No one cares what you do with your child, Hold him/her back 5 times. Who cares...
But why does that give you a special right to play against younger children in YOUTH sports that are BORN on same day as your holdback/prefirst child. Letting select kids play down goes against all that youth sports stand for. If your child gets a special advantage, all players should get the same advantage in Youth sports. Pretty simple concept except to you apologists.
And we are not talking about HS or even Middle school sports which has always gone by grade.
