Pater Familias … because I'm your FATHER!

Fatherly Pride In Swimming Ability Of Daughter

April 23, 2010 · Activities | Behavior | Influences | Glad Dad

Which of your kid's accomplishments makes you bust a button?

Seven-year-old Makes Water Her Own Natural Element

Sebastian, FL – Couple hours of quiet while Minerva and Girl Child do the beach, leaving me some keyboard time and a bit of kayaking that I didn’t mention to the females because I don’t want to hear GC yelling at me not to go. That alligator we saw on Monday made a powerful impression on both mother and daughter. Minerva refuses to get in a kayak, but more because the idea of alligators gives her the creeps than fear of actual attack. Our seven-year-old daughter feels age-appropriate terror, which I don’t mind. Don’t mind, either, that she doesn’t want the Old Man to get eaten.

Right out back is something that could be an object of fear. We have use of a 52-foot -long swimming pool, a big old rectangular number dating to 1928, just about all of which is way over Girl Child’s head – our heads too.  A year ago, when our girl’s swimming was coming along but still a little tentative and jittery in the deep end, I have would worried about the pool the way my females worry about alligators – with a lot more good cause. The thing is potential kid killer, for sure.

This year, though, the pool and the girl make a perfect match. We won’t let her go in alone, naturally, but when we’re in, she swims, dives, challenges us to races and breath-holding contests, makes up games, stages elaborate jokes that involve falling of the floating chaise and playing tricks on us. She just frolics, as if she were born aquatic. She wears out Minerva and me, and we have to swim with her in shifts. She has spent at least four hours in a day in the water, and every day she has wanted to swim more.

Today, the last day, won’t be any different. And I’m eager to get in the pool with her. I am so proud of her swimming, and the way she overcame fear to get so good. Just a few years ago she didn’t want to put her face in the water. A year ago, water over her head scared her. But she stuck with her lessons, and here she is, bold and full of joy in an element that deserves healthy fear, because if you screw up it’ll kill you.

And why should I feel personal pride in this? Well, I’m her Papa, and I’m entitled. And Minerva and I kept her in lessons at the YMCA all through the winter, knowing that this coming swimming season would be so much better. Better all around because our child would have so much more fun and, since we love to be around water, she’d be safer.

Fearless, having fun, where she could be scared and we scared for her. Hope she gets more and more of what swimming has given her.

What makes you proud parents, about what your child can do and what you did to help?

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