I know you’ll know what I mean when I say that there were certain things I was convicted of about raising kids before I became a parent. Before I had my own children, I was full of what was the right way to do things and what was the wrong way to do things, and all that’s fine and important—I think you need to have a game plan, or at least a rough idea of childrearing—but there were so many things that changed when I actually had a real baby of my very own to take care of.
Some things took longer than others to realize, though, and I would put swimming/water fun in the took-longer-than-it-should-have category.
As a new mom, I was very opposed to any kind of flotation-device “crutch,” as I saw it. I was sure that using swimmies (what I call any sort of life jacket/inflatable arm band/puddle jumper type of thing) would inhibit my children from learning how to swim. I imagined that if I let them wear swimmies in the water as tiny boys, then they’d end up having to turn down invitations to swim with friends when they were teenagers because they’d be embarrassed at still needing to use swimmies. “Once you start on swimmies, you can kiss actual swimming goodbye” was my mindset.
I was very severe about this. We didn’t own a swimmy of any kind for the first eight years of our parenthood. We brought our three oldest boys to pools and lakes during the summers and tried to enjoy it but it was never what we hoped it would be and I was sort of beside myself with wondering what was wrong with our kids? My memories of growing up were full of swimming—my siblings and I loved to swim, loved the water, and I wanted that so much for my kids, and they were just not cooperating.
I’ll admit I was a little opposed even to swimming lessons, because in all my memories of swimming fun from growing up, I don’t have one memory of taking swimming lessons. So therefore, swimming lessons were unnecessary.
Thank goodness my husband felt differently.
I’ve written before about the swimming lessons at Skidmore that my boys have taken for the last several years—I really think starting those was the first turning point for our family. Finally we had a boy or two (etc.) who knew how to swim.
But honest-to-goodness, bringing the kids swimming continued to be an absolute nightmare—one of those things that has one of the parents looking at the other with the “Remind me why we’re doing this again?” face.
That is, until we discovered swimmies.
I remember the day vividly. My brother, who has competed twice in the IronMan triathlon as well as many other triathlons, marathons, and athletic races and competitions of all kinds (he knows what he’s doing regarding swimming), brought his son swimming with my boys. His son, my nephew, was two—younger than my four oldest—and I watched my brother strap a swimmy on his little boy and off my nephew went into the water. He was fearless, he was safe, he had a ball.
By that time, my oldest two boys were very proficient in the water, and my number three was nearly there, but my fourth—who’s a year older than my nephew—hadn’t taken lessons yet and was still at that scary stage where he loved to run into the lake and just … keep going. If we didn’t grab him before it was over his head, he’d just go right under. Every trip to the beach was stressful and panicky as we tried to keep an eye on our three-year-old daredevil (never mind his older brothers, who still needed supervision as they swam, and the baby, who needed supervision as he played on the beach).
I watched my nephew in awe. I saw how relaxed my brother was, how much fun he was having. I got a good look at that swimmy. And when my nephew was done swimming and my brother offered to let us use it for a little while if we wanted to, I said, “Yes please,” and strapped it on my boy, and I can’t even tell you how enjoyable the rest of the afternoon was. My boy, who’d been so eager to be out in the water with his brothers, was able to do so safely. He floated and kicked and jumped and yelled, “Mommy! I’m swimming!” and I thought I would just die of happiness right there.
Fast forward two summers: I brought my boys to the lake just this week. My older three bubble around like big fish without swimmies, and my fourth and fifth bubble around like little fish with swimmies. (My sixth is wary enough of the sand and the water that until last week he wouldn’t let me put him down. But he’s making strides! He now likes to sit on the sand and dig with a shovel.) The difference between the summers of my early parenthood and this summer is huge: We’re not constantly worried that someone’s going to drown. We don’t have to cut swim trips short because we’ve absolutely had it with the stress. My husband and I enjoy our trips to the pools and beaches more than I thought was possible for parents of little ones.
Maybe ten years from now you’ll find me writing that, yes, wearing the swimmies have now rendered my teenagers unable to swim without them and they’re the laughingstock of their peers. But I’m finding it really hard to worry about it too much, as I watch them confident and free in the water, enjoying the summer as only kids can.
Kate Towne Sherwin lives in Saratoga Springs with her husband and their sons ages 10, 9, 7, 5, 3, and 1. She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
