Stumbling at the Starting Gate

Many people of my age now have children of their own. Often they worry their children will "lose at the starting gate". To prevent that from happening, they enroll their children in a wide variety of courses and activities — playgroups, music classes (piano lessons are the absolute minimum these days), school interview (and public speaking) training courses, athletic training (mainly swimming) lessons, study trips abroad — at an early age. While listening to a group of parents talking about their kids, the kids' schedule in particular, one gets the feeling that one is among a pack of tigers (tiger parents actually).

Reading and hearing tales of parents who wants to make their children competitive at a (very) early age made me think of my experiences of a child, specifically my experiences as a boy in kindergarten.

Music
My formal music training (aside from music classes at school) consisted four trial piano lessons, which is far too little in a lot of parents of today's minds.
Sports
No swimming classes, no dance lessons, no formal training. (To be fair, my parents did take me to hike and play in parks.)
Playgroup
My parents didn't enroll me in any playgroup. (To be fair, "Playgroup? What is a playgroup?" would likely be the reaction of most parents in the 80's.)
Social Skill Development
As a boy, I wasn't enrolled in any interview training or public speaking courses. (To be honest, a little training might have helped.)
Volunteering
I didn't participate in any volunteer activities until my age hit two digits. (One has to wonder, though, if kindergarten-aged volunteers can really be considered as such.)
Study Trips
None at all. (Do kids learn anything, other than perhaps taking care of themselves, from such trips?)

From this exercise one can see how the prevailing mentality on parenting has changed in 30 years. If my (hypothetical) children has the same childhood as me (a highly probable scenario), I would probably receive quite a lot of advice from well-meaning people that what I am doing would stifle their development and they would be left behind. Worse, they would blame me for letting them "lose at the starting gates" when they become older. In many people's (and probably my) mind, it is a good thing I don't have any children yet, or the world would have another problem child or two.