I remember taking my first born for his first ever swim lessons to the rec center in our neighborhood. He was about 3.5 and a shy child. Like every good stay at home mom, I dragged him to different classes and activities against his will. There were tears and bribes involved. I almost made Pablo Escobar look like a ninny with my MnM bribes and “rewards” dispensed for not crying. So we went to story time at the Library where my kids would stand frozen while everyone else enthusiastically swished their diaper clad behinds in the Lets Go Swimming songs. I would drag him to toddler soccer classes and Little Tiger Taekwondo classes all in the vain attempt to get him out of his shell.
Then we moved to India. He was seven when we moved. The shell had to come off. He had no choice in the matter.
I waited a whole year to enroll my not-so-littles in swim lessons in India. There’s a good reason for that. I remember swim coaches of yesteryears, when I myself was learning to swim. They followed the tried and true method of let’s traumatize the child. There were big pot-bellied coaches who would take wiggly screaming children and throw them into the deep end. Float or die was the theme in the class.
Quite different from the Children of the Sea theme swim lessons. One week was pirates and another week would be mermaids. There were medals and songs and walls that were painted with mermaids and sea horses.
I had hoped that in the last 30 years somethings had changed.
And they had.
The swim coaches looked younger than I remembered. Oh wait, that’s just me. In the last 30 years, I’d gotten a little older.
So, off my first born went. I hoped and prayed they wouldn’t throw him into the deep end. Like, you know, literally.
Thankfully, he had had some experience swimming. Because on day one they did put him in the deep end. Thankfully, they sent him off with a kick board.
Lifeguards on duty. Just a guy who walks about in a red tee. And then pushes the nervous unsuspecting kid into the water.
Ratio is not one is to five like in the US. It’s one coach is to how many bakra kids sign up.
Heated pool. Like don’t be surprised if your kid turns blue.
Sending the kids who can sort of swim up and down the length of the pool yelling headdown every time the kid raises their head for air. HEEEADOWN!
But nothing can beat my experience. I was about 15 years old when I enrolled for swim lessons. I could already do the free style. I just needed to get better at it and learn other strokes.
The coach was as always an overbearing yelling type.
Anyways, he mostly ignored me and somehow I picked up a couple extra stokes – the butterfly stroke, the breast stroke.
My dear mother watched from the sidelines and would then
