Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Gift to a Little Girl
People think I’m kidding when I tell them my dad taught me to swim by throwing me off the end of the dock. They think it’s hyperbole. It’s not. But it’s a half-truth. He did throw me off the dock but he didn’t teach me to swim.
He taught me to scramble. He taught me to recover. He taught me that I could get myself back to the dock on my own.
I remember standing at the end of the white wood dock at my Uncle J’s cabin watching my brother and sister and our cousins swimming. And I remember my dad lifting me up and making several pretend throws, counting 1-2-3 like he was going to throw me in but then didn’t. It made me laugh over and over again. It never occurred to me that he would actually throw me in. And then he did.
I sank. I dropped through the water like a 40-lb bowling ball. I saw the tall feathery lake weeds on the way down, so many weeds it felt like falling from the sky into a pine forest.
The scrambling started then. To the top, to the light, and then to the pole anchoring the dock. It was hysterical scrambling, frantic kicks and arm flailing that started somehow to make sense. When I got to the dock pole, I didn’t know how I’d gotten there. I only knew that I did.
I didn’t thank my father for this experience or understand that he’d done me some grand favor by tossing me in the lake. I guess I figured he’d thrown his other two kids in the lake before me and if there were more children after me, they’d be thrown in, too. I didn’t feel singled out or abused. I felt like a person who would never need to be scared about getting thrown off the dock.
It had already happened. If it happened again, it couldn’t scare me anymore than it did the first time. After I’d made it to the dock pole. I was inoculated.
I thought about this today. I wondered how to make my granddaughter a tougher girl. I know I would never throw her off the end of the dock. Instead, I would spend endless Sundays at the local pool watching a teenage instructor help her become ‘comfortable in the water.’ I want her to have challenges but I want them to be safe challenges. I want there to be no chance anything bad happen. I don’t want her to be afraid. I don’t want to see that little look in her eyes when she is about to cry.
But because I’ve been so worried all these years that she’d be scared, I’ve got a girl who doesn’t know she can make it to the dock pole. The end of the dock is an ominous place for her, the water unfathomably deep, the weeds angry and strangling. She’s ten and she doesn’t know what I knew at four. She can make it to the dock pole.
10 Comments on “Gift to a Little Girl”
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Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
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“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
It’s such a hard line to walk, and depends so much on the personality of the child. My brother was thrown in the water by an ignorant swim “instructor” as a child, and in his 60s he has still never learned to swim and is afraid of the water. So I’d never endorse that approach, in any context. And yet, the constant protectiveness and fear of anything bad happening makes it hard to help them build a sense of competence, doesn’t it? Your writing is so evocative, as always.
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I think your father must have been awfully brave or somewhat callous. I know I couldn’t do it. I try to keep my hovering and fretting in check; it is a constant battle. People say “what’s the worst that can happen?” and I always have a ready answer…
I am constantly in awe of your ability to tell your story so effectively and concisely.
These are both ways to learn but if I had to pick a way, I would take yours. I would want them to become stronger but I can try some other way of throwing off the deck.
As a parent, I know I have the choice to throw my little one into the metaphorical deep end or wade in slowly with him. I like the wading, because then we don’t have to stop holding hands.
My dad did the same thing with me. He threw me in to a man made lake with river stone sides. He stood on the embankment, I could see his face as I scratched a flailed to the surface. I made it and climbed the rocks and got out. I’m kind of proud when I tell this story. However, I could never really do this to any of my grandkids. We have safer adventures but I still think they know how to climb up and out. I bet your grandaughter will too.
I am very sad for my granddaughters because their parents never let them roam because the parents believed there were bad people out their waiting for them. They seem to have a lot of anxieties and fears. It seems to me that I learned to be competent by going out on my own, without adult supervision. We had free run of the neighborhood and our neighborhood became bigger and bigger as we wandered. I never remember being told what the boundaries were although maybe I was.
She knows she has a family, including a grandma, that supports her unconditionally. So the next leaps taking risks, knowing the support system is there seems really possible. I would have ” liked” your dad better if he had a hand in the water at the dock…. Or maybe this is your point… On your own or with the knowledge of support. The nurse in me likes to provide safety nets…. From increasing distances but a net.
There’s a fine line to be walked. My father swore that his mother wouldn’t let him swim until he knew how.