Sitting in the bleachers, ten feet above the pool deck and ten degrees warmer than a kitchen in hell, we bellow “Go! Go! Go!” at our son who can’t hear us because his ears are in the water. He is tasked with cheering for himself during the race, slicing and splashing with fervor and resilience. We’re just ineffective mood music, until he pulls himself up by the diving blocks and glances our way (or not) and we squawk out “Way to go!” awkwardly, as the rest of the cheering dissipates.
My heart thrills. A satisfaction settles into my bones during swim season. He is doing something he likes an awful lot, on a team of earnest and silly and hard-working boys, under coaching that encourages him to push through what his limits might be without inducing agony by extending too far. I’m grateful for the kind and congenial culture of the team and families. For this, I am going to show up as much as I possibly can, particularly because my son wants to show up as much as he possibly can. How he landed in this sport, on this particular team, feels like a miracle, without anything miraculous about the story, honestly. It’s the feather landing in the book during Forrest Gump. It’s just a good match.
When Charlie was six, he voiced a brand-new wish from the backseat: “Mom, I think I want to try hockey.” I responded with pity and conviction: “Oh, buddy, it’s too late for you.” It was partially true. Hockey dogma dictates you begin on the rink while still in diapers; the less zealous know you can find more relaxed alternatives through rec leagues and such. But my certainty about his inability to participate was grounded in a different reality. We are not the people who can devote all our time to one pursuit (as I presumed hockey families do), no matter how righteous or fun or perfectly geared to enhance all the very best qualities of our child. Furthermore, we are not the people with the budget to propel our children to sport stardom. If either of them were ever identified as a prodigy…well, the lottery and a team of managers comes to mind. We couldn’t endure it, for sure.
Nor are we the people who demand absolute excellence from our children. Of course, we want them to succeed, but even in our finest moments, we are merely vehemently ambiguous. “Do your best but not if you have to sacrifice your sanity but it’s important to focus and follow through but take a break when you need to and work super hard but if you don’t that’s OK we’ll still love you.” Not much tiger mom material here.
Swim team seems to hit the sweet spot: challenge that’s not overly intense, endorphins fired up but not to the point they’ve sizzled out, and a team uniform that can be the butt of at least a few jokes. We commit to what we can, and strive for balance.
This swim season, however, has introduced one tiny shim that throws us off kilter. At the pre-season info session, Coach announced she would add a morning practice to the schedule — once a week, and it is “optional”.
Suddenly, I am irritated, anxious. This should be simple. It’s only an extra hour of practice during the week. Yet my frustration mounts as I consider the consequences of such a proclamation.
Our family has been appreciating the new school start time this year — one hour later, pushed back for all public middle and high schools in our city, in response to studies about sleep for adolescents. The later start time is one factor for offering the extra practice, a cavernous hour of unscheduled moments to be stuffed with laps and turns instead of more sleep or a real breakfast, apparently. I don’t yet understand the other motivations, just a vague suggestion that the more time a swimmer puts in, the faster they’ll be. (Let me just add right here something I need to be clear about: I have great respect for Coach. She’s terrific.)
By now we know the parameters, the expectations of swim team. We relish in giving ourselves over for a few months to the sultry stands and extra trips to school, all for the fleeting joy of seeing our son work hard, have fun, and crack a giant grin when he scores a personal record from time to time. We signed up for this, and so did he.
But my trepidation swells when it requires more than I think is reasonable to give. An extra hour of swim is impractical for so many reasons. One more bag of toiletry items to carry, a soggy towel for a whole day until it’s second use. Compromised sleep schedule. More snacks to pack. For this one-car family, disrupting our newly-honed, successful morning routine (we are finally winning!!) with yet more grooves in the well-worn path between home and school. These are minor but annoying inconveniences.
The real struggle lies in how this is “optional”. With 2.5 hours of full-body and soul exercise, 6 days a week, how it is conceivable that my son’s swim performance should be enhanced by one more hour? He’s already gotten the message that as a varsity swimmer, he’s expected to attend. He gives his all at each practice, he supports his teammates, yet he’s being asked to do more. Is this what he wants? Is this what we want for him? I know small efforts make a big difference, but that math is exactly the burden: the one hour of extra practice is doomed to subtract something precious from the whole. I can’t help but recall myself at his exact age, involved in one or two too many activities at the same time, drinking Maalox straight from the bottle at my locker between classes, without the self-awareness to recognize when I’d gotten in too deep. Overcommitment is a pattern I’ve repeated enough, but less and less as I realize I don’t want to give my entire self away, that I need to keep a part of me intact. That’s my wish for Charlie: the confidence to recognize when he’s being asked to do more than he can manage without compromising the critical.
It’s too soon to tell, of course, but I predict our kid whose life consists of more than swim — who plays guitar and does chores, who takes accelerated classes and does (almost all) his homework, who attends church with us and occasionally babysits, who draws and drafts clever project designs — this wickedly hilarious, smart and thoughtful kid, developing a million different life skills and talents at a maddening pace, might find it increasingly difficult to tend to all these marvelous facets of himself. That he might begin to believe he isn’t whole enough. Or that he just might grow more tired than he should be.
So I resist. I don’t want us to get swept up in the current of over-scheduling and myopic focus on singular activities I see happening in families and communities, the unreasonable stress and relentless frenzy of activity. We humans need more space than that.
For this sport, for his team, for himself, Charlie is going to keep showing up. He is going to keep working hard. We know this about him. We will be watching and cheering, searching for signs that the current is sweeping him under. He will do his best — and even if he doesn’t we will still love him (duh).
Footnote: I have been instructed by the son named above to keep in mind that Coach is still finding her way with our team, this her second season, and that my comments in any discussion with her should not be inflammatory (he used a trendy colloquialism that I refuse to write here because I have wonderful friends named Karen who might be less appreciative of this new phrase). I have assured him I will keep my cool.
Footnote #2: I have nothing against hockey, players or families, I promise. But I’ll take the swelter of the pool over freezing my toukus (how do you spell that word?) at the rink any day.
