Do you have children?

I do. I still subscribe to your ideals or at least mostly follow them. But for lack of playing such games, I saw my children’s opportunities slip away.

My kids are not that old, so it hasn't come to a head yet. I presume you're talking about school performance - particularly closer to high school?

At the same time, we may need to adjust our baseline on what we call "opportunities".

I've lived in other countries, and one of the nice things about the US is how uncompetitive school is. One could (and likely still can) get into a decent "average" university without much difficulty. In other countries, not so. You could be in the top 10% academically and end up in a really low quality university. I would understand playing such games there.