All week the announcement played before and after class. “Parents Day is coming up, mommies and daddies. Bring a suit and join your child’s lessons!” All week I looked around at the other parents enjoying the breeze coming off the pool as their kids paddled and splashed.
And all week I fretted, because the other adults looked to me as though they could go directly from swim lesson to modeling gig. Each mommy wore perfect hair, fully done make-up and a cute outfit, including the ones pushing newborns in strollers. All were thin, cute and young, oh so very young. It crossed my mind to wonder if we’d been placed in the wrong class, as this was clearly a special class just for the pretty moms.
Oh how I dreaded the idea of suiting up in front of these gorgeous mommies, considering my comparatively advanced age, saggy breasts and tummy. I would no doubt be the least attractive parent in the pool, I was sure of it. I cast about for an excuse, any excuse, not to get into the water on the day in question. Could I claim some significant yet invisible injury? Might it work to decline because of my period, even though Auntie Flo hasn’t visited my house in eighteen wonderful months? Would everyone think me awful if I just sat it out?
“Buck up,” I told myself sternly. “Who cares what you look like in comparison to the other mommies? You’re here to help the children, not compete in an imaginary beauty pageant.”
As I slipped into the water with my deliriously happy children, guess what I realized? Out of perhaps forty other parents present that morning, I was the only one swimming. The rest sat fully clothed in their usual spots around the pool. Some, I’ll admit, had good excuses: one wore an elaborate arm sling; perhaps another nine or ten wrangled siblings too young to be left alone. But the majority showed no obvious reasons for not being in the pool.
“Where are the rest of the parents?” I quizzed my kids’ teachers. “Is it typical that so few join in?” They said that it was indeed the norm for only a couple to hop in the pool. As I watched my children’s second class of the day I saw the same thing play out again, only then it was a solitary father who splashed about.
I left the lesson wondering which of two thoughts I should encourage in my mind: The one that said I should stop worrying what others might think of how I look; or the one that said next time, not a soul will care if I skip Parents Day.
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i can think of three souls who will care if you skip Parent’s Day. And their opinions are the most important. That’s what i remind myself every time my children beg me to come swim with them, and i force myself into my skirted fat person swimsuit and go play.
I agree, the children will always care, and thats what is important.
I actually heard a similar story from a chic couple that went to a party in LA. They jumped in the pool, then realized they were the only ones: everyone else was going around in “bone dry bikinis”. I guess if you get wet, then it messes up the pretty. :P
Those skinny momma’s are the ones worried about how they look in a swim suit. You on the other hand are more comfortable and gorgeous in your not so perfect body. Which makes you one hot tamale!
Those ladies sat there sweating and wishing they were you. Or worst, they are cold fish that can’t have orgasms and have to fake it with their men.
So next time.. strut your stuff. As those ladies wish they were you and their men ache to fuck you!
What Diana said…
You are brave and you love your children the other parents clearly do not have your braveness x love index. To back this up I remember a post about a child left in the snow (I can’t find it though).
Good for you! I have one word for the dry bikini types: Selfish.
In ten years will your kids remember the day for you spending time with them, or for how you looked in a swimsuit? That’s truly what counts.
I’m also a firm believer that true beauty radiates from the inside and isn’t reflected in the physical.
Jump in that pool. I’m sure your children were the envy of all the other swimmers whose parent sat high and dry. Perhaps some of the “beautiful” mothers were envious too.
When I was a child I had no idea my parents were significantly older than my peers’. I did however, know they were there in attendance supporting me and encouraging me!
It sounds to me like you were beautiful and behaved meaningfully that day, while those others were cold and inconsiderate and yes, ugly–teaching their impressionable little ones entirely the wrong message.
There are at least 3 small souls that cared very much that you did not miss parent’s day.
Getting my mom to swim with us was always a moment of pure happiness and triumph for us as children!
Thank you so much for this! I, too, have been struggling with these issues lately. Tomorrow, I will be brave and remember how much it means to my son and that self-confidence is the best aphrodisiac. :)
Good for you…and GOOD LUCK!
Unfortunately this is the day of grown adults putting their concerns about how they look in front of the needs of their children. Mind you I live in southern CA and it’s a lifestyle for most people… but I worry about these kids who see how their parents behave and what they find important.
Your kids will only remember that you did things with them. Not how you looked doing it. Those other poor children will remember that mommy didn’t want to get her makeup messed up.
And we wonder what’s happening to kids these days!
I’m not a parent, and don’t have the smallest iota of maternal instinct.
Your story made me recall an afternoon I spent at the beach with a co-worker and grade-school-teacher wife who had young children. And as I sat in the sand idly making mudpies and showing the kids how, I realized I was the only adult “getting my hands dirty” that afternoon.
You teach the kids confidence and that you care more about them than anything else. THe other kids who live with perfect-mommy-hair must have been so sad. But perhaps those kids have already learned not to expect such simple, easy, fun moments from their parents. Free. Not scripted.