My daughter, Jane, has just started taking swimming lessons at Ridge Park, a park district center on the south side of Chicago. This has been extremely exciting for my wife, who views learning to swim as childhood at its zenith. I was never a big aquatics fan myself, having distinctly disturbing memories of Coach Nystrom dunking my head in the water and telling the whole class I was shaped like a jelly bean. It is really awesome to watch your kid learning things, however, so that sort of trumps any personal feelings. Anyway, last week she had her first class, and my wife reported how great it went. Not only did she not complain the whole time, she volunteered to be the second kid to jump in the water (!) and the first (!) to go down the slide! She was a little apprehensive about the "magic carpet ride", but that just seems like street smarts kicking in. Total success story all the way around, and my daughter kept telling me that I would be so proud of her that I would "cry till my eyes pop out". Pretty awesome, right?Well I was fortunate enough to have the day off this Monday, so I was able to go with them to the class. After some initial success working with Instructor Carlos and his kickboard, one of the kids, Roisin (pronounced RO-Sheen), started to have a meltdown, causing instant anxiety for all of the kids involved. It didn't help that her mother chose to threaten her from the bleachers with an aborted trip to the museum, and her brother Peter just kept submerging his head obliviously. Thanks a lot, Peter. So when it came time to jump in the water, Jane refused. At first she claimed she had to go to the bathroom, but then when she came back, she was resolved not to do it. I tried to psych her up, but to no avail. One of the other college kid instructors, who was clearly higher up on the totem pole than Carlos, smugged to me, "No offense, but I've seen it a hundred times. The kid shuts down in front of Dad. She's nervous is all." Fucking Lifeguard Chair Psychology from this douchebag in flip-flops. So now it's water slide time. Jane's checked out at this point. I try to have a little calming chat with her on the sidelines, but she tells me she's going to get water in her nose if she slides in. (Which, in all fairness, would be my reasoning for not doing it.) She would not accept last week's accomplishments as reasoning to go for it again, nor would she take random kid Morgan's current success as a challenge. To add insult to injury, Roisin's mom puts her on the slide and pushes her down. That's not really my parenting style, so I backed off and Jane joined the other kids on the shallow end steps to chill out for the remainder of the hour.
The sad thing is I know that the douchebag was right, and she was just nervous in front of me. Jane's not a big fan of pressure. She likes performing for people as long as they don't specifically ask her to - once people start to cheer her on, it's time to go. It's like when you're a comedian and someone tells you to be funny - it's that weird artificial pressure of the moment. It's probably just as irritating for a brave kid to be told to be brave. Jane prefers it when you just assume she's going to do the right thing and don't insist on talking it to death. And more often than not, she does. There's something reassuring about seeing your own personality traits in your children, even if they're not the most flattering.
After class I bought her some cheesy popcorn from the vending machine, and we drove home to watch The Amazing Race finale. We both loved it.
BaeRating: B+
UPDATE: Video of a Carlos Assisted Jump
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