I Used To Judge The Boring Mom At The Pool. Now I Am One

How Being A Mom Changes You My kids splash in the shallows of the pond as Band-Aids float by. I remove a Dora one that’s wrapped around my calf and release it a few feet to my left. I’m anchored to my spot knee-deep, arms across my chest, wearing the same weathered Red Sox cap I wore as a teenaged lifeguard, my eyes shifting between two unstable points: my three-year-old and my six-year-old. The six-year-old learned to float a week ago and is working on swimming, producing a lot of turbulence as he paddles from the concrete fountain to me and back. The three-year-old alternates between filling his bucket with sand and dragging himself around in the water with his hands on the bottom, legs floating behind him. Every once in a while they do something I don’t expect, and that’s why I maintain this state of vigilance, a state I settle back into easily, remembering the mix of boredom, anxiety, and authority. The only thing missing is a whistle to twirl around my fingers.

I spent six summers perched in a chair above the moms and their kids at a town pond a mere eight miles away. Often I was so silent and still that the moms forgot I was only a few feet above them and lapsed into intimacy. One day I realized two of them were talking about sex, or at least foreplay. The first one joked that when her husband touched her nipples, she wanted to tell him to turn on the lights so she could react appropriately. The other one guffawed. ”I mean, I appreciate the gesture, but after nursing three,” the first one said, trailing off. I slowly put it together that her nipples were as tough as my feet had become from walking in hot sand all summer. Oh, how sad, how pathetic, I thought, to have reached this point. I looked them over in their skirted floral suits, designed for maximum coverage.

Legions of moms brought their kids to the pond every weekday. I knew them by sight, and I taught their kids to swim. I watched as they hauled buckets and coolers and chairs down the path from the parking lot, some of them with babies strapped to their chests, pausing to bark at a straggler, refusing to pick up a toddler ”” or worse ”” giving in and adding to their burdens. They were always running late. We offered six weeks of lessons, and they signed up for all of them. They arrived when we opened, set up umbrellas, applied sunscreen to uncooperative kids, and stayed for lunch. Sometimes they swung their babies to sleep in car seats like pendulums between their spread legs, the pose so unflattering I had to turn away, and if that worked they stayed through the afternoon. What else did they have to do?

Nothing, I thought. I bit my lip, already thinking of the scathing way I would recount this story to my friend, who was on break up by the bathhouse. Maybe we’d be sent over to the dock together in the next rotation, where we could stand side by side facing opposite directions, scanning the water for signs of trouble. She was, and still is, a good friend. We both considered ourselves to be witty high school iconoclasts, and we had artistic ambitions. I told the story and got just the eye-rolling reaction I’d hoped for. I didn’t even have to state the moral of the story, because it was so heavily implied: I’ll never be like them.

Swimwear that hides problem areas has come a long way in twenty years. Great things are being achieved with ruching. Last year I ordered a short-sleeved SPF swim shirt for myself, and this year I went whole hog and bought a long-sleeved one. It’s white with horizontal navy stripes, and it would be faintly Gallic if I didn’t wear it with my crusty cap. I realize this getup borders on the Victorian, but my freckled skin has had all the sun exposure it can take for one lifetime.

I periodically wade over to the fountain to cool off. The beads of water turn to rainbows in the sun, and I recognize the beauty of this before some kid splashes me. It’s my kid, expending way more energy on kicking than he needs to, but his determined little face with goggles suctioned over his eyes is lovely to behold, too. He pushes off the bottom again and again in his effort to master swimming. Sometimes he even asks me for advice. I love to watch him launch into a back float, and the way his body and face relax as he settles into buoyancy. A week ago he’d never felt it, and now he understands this indescribable pleasure.

To arrive at this moment, I packed lunch, snacks, thermoses, towels, goggles, diapers, wipes, buckets, shovels, and changes of clothes. I interrupted my older son’s Lego assembly and told him to get dressed, and I captured my younger one and dressed him. I applied sunscreen. I asked my older son to put on his sandals and then help his brother with his. I ran upstairs and donned my swimming costume. When I returned the sandals were on, though the three-year-old’s were on the wrong feet. I thanked them for their compliance. I shouldered my beach bag and the enormous IKEA bag filled with smaller bags and we headed for the car. We drove to the other side of town before I remembered the coffee I’d poured into a travel mug and left on the counter. I’d been looking forward drinking it on the beach, though I’d also wondered how I would carry it. We followed a line of minivans into the parking lot.

I hoisted a bag onto each shoulder and we made our way across the parking lot, showed our passes to the yawning teenager at a picnic table, and headed for the far end of the beach, where the lessons are. My three-year-old doesn’t like the way the sand feels on his bare feet, and he doesn’t like it when the sand gets into his sandals, which it always does, so he stood at the edge of the beach, holding up his arms in the universal sign. I caved immediately. We were cutting it close, as usual, and I told my older son to sprint to his lesson. He did. I lifted my younger son to my hip, where he hung against the bag, pushing the strap deeper into my flesh. Pain shot through my neck, down my shoulder, to my upper back. I walked faster. No way was I putting this stuff down now. We crossed what felt like the Sahara. I dumped everything, including my son, who removed his sandals, picked up his trusty bucket and shovel, and began to dig.

And now here we are. Here I am. When I thought I would never be like those moms, I didn’t have a clear vision of what my life would look like instead. I wanted to be a fiction writer. I wanted to live somewhere interesting ”” a large American or European city. Definitely not the suburbs. I would have said I wanted to have kids eventually, but I don’t know what I thought I would do with them. As it turns out, I live in the suburbs, on the edge of a large American city. I like it. As it turns out, I am a fiction writer. My younger self would be dismayed that I don’t have a book out, but good things are happening right now and I’m working on it, mostly during the school year.

 

In the summer, I shelve my professional ambitions and take my kids to the pond. It’s not exactly digging trenches, but at times it’s tedious and it’s always exhausting. The kids love it, and we have nothing else to do. The first day we went this summer, my younger son fell asleep in a grocery cart later that day and slept all the way through checkout. When my husband came home from work, he found the boys in front of the TV and me asleep in their room, the air conditioner blasting. I managed to unload the groceries and hang everything up to dry before I went down.

If I could go back to those moms who discussed their nipples while we all watched their kids swim, I know what I’d do. Instead of sitting on a bench waiting for my swim lesson group to convene, I’d offer to carry something ”” a chair, an umbrella, a rolling cooler, or maybe a toddler staging a sit-down. I’d quit twirling my whistle and help. I wish I could unburden the moms I see now, but my own hands are always full.

What I can do is watch two of my friend’s kids while she takes the third one to the bathroom. I am good at making sure kids don’t drown. I can tell her I like her swimsuit, because I do. I hope never to discuss our nipples, but I’m willing to report here that mine are doing just fine, and that my feet are tougher than ever.

(Image: getty images)

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