Why Taking The Kids to Swimming Lessons is Torture

What springs to mind when you think about your kids’ swimming lessons? For me, it’s weekly torture if I’m honest, something I’d love to forgo yet find myself back by the pool, flashing a big grin and pretending I’m not dying inside, because my kids enjoy them so much.

Yes, it’s wonderful to witness my kids learn (and improve on) the life-saving skill that is swimming with their WHOLE 29 minutes in the pool each week (we’re always a ruddy minute late) but I age 10 years each week (I’m 85 now) as I try not to melt/faint in a 100 degree heat (why oh why does the pool room-is that EVEN a word? need to be so hot?) while encouraging the kids with waves and smiles during the lesson (‘Did you see that dive, Mum?’ ‘Yes son, in between trying not to collapse from heat exhaustion, well done’).

And don’t get me started on the pre-and post swim prep that goes on for those blink and you miss them 29 minutes as I wrestle the kids in and out of uniform/ trunks, helping them to pull on the ‘always too small’ swimming caps, useless ear plugs, too tight/too loose goggles and salvage that rogue sock that always makes its escape to the pool. FFS. And there’s more. The feeding required before and after the lesson as the sprogs are always hungry after school and starving after swimming which to be fair is the hungry-maker of all sports, and let’s not forget my very unlike Mary Berry, soggy bottom from sitting on a random chair/ bench due to the dizziness of standing in that heat (I impressively managed to soak through my boots last week, too despite those shiny blue shoe covers) and to top it all off, there’s the walk home that makes me feel I’ve completed a marathon by the time I’ve reached the finish line aka a glass of wine back home where I’m ready for bed when the kids sleep.

Every bloody week, I promise myself it will be the last. That I’ll enrol the kids into a swimming fast track style course in the summer (I don’t even know if one exists) as both can swim but a crash course would mean we never have to endure weekly lessons again, but I never quite muster the guts to go for it, to give that month’s notice to the pool and reclaim my Wednesday evenings.

It seems I’m not alone in my hate for the lessons either.

And, I mean hate. Just look at the latest FB thread on my Honest Mum page (go give it a like while you’re there, might as well :)) on the matter.

I’m tired, and swimming lessons have a lot to answer for.

Are you?