Swim Team: A Confession

I’m going to say it once and only once: I was wrong about swim team. Until this year, I had been unwilling to make the commitment to the sport. However, with a push from my friend and my husband, I changed my ways and stepped up to the plate. I was wrong about a few things, but I was also right about some, including the following:

• I wasn’t wrong to say that swim team chips away at your free time.
• I wasn’t wrong to say that you spend from 7:30 a.m. until 2 p.m. at swim meets every Saturday for six weeks.
• And, I wasn’t wrong to say that it’s quite a commitment—with everyday practices—right up there with your child playing baseball and softball, two sports without timed clocks.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I am a glutton for punishment.

Yes, all of these aforementioned things are true.

However, I will bow down to Currie and my husband, and now say that I was wrong about five things in particular that I hadn’t taken into consideration as a person who never participated as a kid on swim team, but rather on a tennis team:

• Swim team connects you to your pool’s community.
• Swim team allows your children to make new friends.
• Swim team builds confidence in your children.
• Swim team keeps you in fantastic shape.
• Swim team keeps you busy and helps fight summer boredom.

Those five reasons are worth dealing with the following: the lack of sleep; the long Saturday mornings trying to wake yourself up with coffee; the heat and staying cool under the shade of your friends’ tent; the dripping, teeming, ridiculous rain that leaves you wet and cold and shivering, and your children frozen to the bone; and the time it requires of you as other things must fall by the wayside.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: THE THINGS WE DO FOR OUR CHILDREN.

And I’m so happy I finally relented and had a successful swim team season. I’m so proud of my kids and what they’ve accomplished. They’ve competed, won, lost, and showed some true grit. They’ve made new friends and built confidence in themselves. And as an added bonus, my husband and I have made some new friends through it.

Swim team is over for now.

But, as Arnold Schwarznegger says, “I’ll be back.”

We all will be.