Cal's Second Swimming Lesson

The scene has been burned into my memory.  It’s not a pleasant scene, nor is it one that I want to re-live but fully expect to.  In this scene, I am handing a kicking, screaming, tearful, swimsuit-clad Cal off to his swimming instructor for the last 15 minutes of his swimming lesson (we had already lost 15 minutes attempting to coax him into the pool verbally).  The scene moves forward, and Cal is now being dragged by his instructor back and forth across the water in their swimming lane -- 6 to 8 feet of Hell per "lap" for Cal.  Tears still streaming down his face, he is pleading to stop and get out of the water.  The words “I don’t want to!” and “Mommy!” are projecting throughout the swimming pool area for everyone to hear, for everyone to seek out the source and for everyone to sympathize… with Cal, with me and with the little girl who was sharing the lesson with Cal.

I know how I felt, and I’m sure that everyone could see it in my face and body language.  Not embarrassed by any means, I was THAT mom who wasn’t helping her kid despite his repeated pleas that I do so.  Sitting on a bench maybe 6 feet from the edge of the pool where my kid was suffering, the practical, common sense part of my brain repeatedly told the instinctive part of my brain to stay put.  He needs to do this.  He needs to be comfortable in the water and learn some swimming basics for his own good.  The occasional screw his own good, no one should suffer like this flashed through my head and was always quickly quieted by he needs to learn how to swim.

He talks a good game, that Cal.  Not two hours earlier, he interjected himself into a phone conversation Ella was having with Grandma (I’d recap it if I could decipher what it was she – Ella – was talking about) and told Grandma something to the effect of he was going to his swimming lesson that day, he was going to be brave, he was going to learn how to swim, etc… nothing that would suggest that we’d have to fight through his ridiculous resistance to even sitting on the side of the pool with his feet in the water.

As he yelled, “Mommy!,” I heard, “Mommy, save me!”  And I didn’t.  I didn’t save him.  I watched him suffer, and I suffered, too.  And as we both suffered, the thought that he might remember that I was the one who didn’t save him landed in my mind.  And this made the situation even more painful.  Not only was I THAT mom who didn’t help her kid, I was also THAT mom whose kid knew that she didn’t help him.

Eventually, with maybe 5 minutes left in his lesson Cal settled down.  Not screaming or crying anymore, he cooperated, frowning and miserable the whole time, with things like trying to relax as his instructor helped him float on his back or submerging his mouth and nose in the water.  Nary a smile hit his face as he did this – bless his heart, I think he just figured out that he needed to suck it up and just get through the lesson.

Deep down, I know that by not helping him that day I actually helped him.  I can look into his future knowing my past and make decisions for him that aren’t popular at the time but that set him up for success and happiness in the future.  I want him to be comfortable and safe frolicking in a swimming pool with his friends and/or cousins at parties and gatherings.  I want him to be able to relax and keep himself safe should he find himself in trouble on a lake.  I want him to not need Mommy or Daddy to be in the pool with him, holding him (for everyone's own good).

We have a long and, I believe, painful way to go.  I think Cal, his swimming instructor and little swimming partner would agree.