"I'm DOING IT!!!!"

The thing I love about Madison is how exactly like me she is. Yes, it's my favorite thing to live my psychosis through another small person. To not only help her find her way through situations I struggle with myself but to also know this is the legacy I've handed down to my only daughter.

I've talked before about Maddie's struggles with new situations and how much guilt I feel for the ways she struggles. I also talked about how different Max is, and how much comfort that gives me, since it means maybe we are who we are no matter how looney our mother is (or is not).

This week we started swim lessons and Madison began dreading it the week before the class started and mentioned it at least once a day. She explained to me she did not need to learn to swim because, "You never even swim!"

Which is true but I did swim before I became aware of things like cellulite and the world of unflattering bathing suits. I told her I don't like to swim very often anymore but I can swim if I needed to. "Like, if you or Max needed help in the water I could save you."

She answered, "But I'm never having kids, so it doesn't matter."

"That's really interesting," I said. "Into the pool."

She did it anyway and each day this week she's been a little irritated I'm making her go back. "I almost DROWN yesterday! Why do you want me to DROWN???"

Little known fact! Red Cross Certified Swim Teachers standing within 24 inches of swim students, will just let them drown.

In contrast, Max ran off with his swim teacher (they're in the pool with different groups at the same time) and the next time I saw him he was wearing a floatation device, paddling with his group and screaming with joy, "I'M DOING IT!!! I'M DOING IT!!!"

After the first class, Madison came to me around 5pm crying about swim class. In spite of the fact that she'd actually swam, on her own, she was still afraid to go back. When Logan walked in the door Maddie was crying in my arms and at the sound of Logan's voice Max came running in yelling, "I LOVE SWIM CLASS!!!!!"

The dichotomy of our children could not have been more clear in that moment.

When I take Maddie to the pool, she is anxious and worrying about what happens next. Will it be different than yesterday? What if I have to jump in? What if the teacher thinks I'm better than I really am? What if? What if? What if?

I don't know that's exactly what Maddie's thinking, but I can make a reasonably educated guess because the what ifs are what goes through my head when I'm facing something which is hard for me to do.

Max "swims" as if he's riding a bike. The other kids in his group swim on their stomachs paddling with their legs and arms and getting across the pool quickly. Max just doesn't care, he is full of joy and lacks any self conscious worry about how things are going to go. He lives in the moment.

When I watch him at swim class my heart swells with pride and also relief. It's not just that I'm a self conscious freak and have taught my kids to be self conscious freaks. This is more proof of temperament and how little control I really have. Also I'm just happy to see my little boy having fun.

When I watch Maddie nervously standing in line, her mind racing a mile a minute, "Oh God, I have to jump in? I don't want to jump in. Please don't make me jump in. I don't want to jump in." Then her turn comes up, and she gets up on the platform and she takes a deep breath and does it anyway.

My heart swells with pride and makes me even more sure I have to keep doing it anyway because since she's like me I have to teach her how to be who she is without letting it hold her back.

However, this does not mean I'll be putting a swimsuit on anytime soon. We all have our limits.

Comments

[Mrs X]

I always feel a bit guilty when I see my girl acting like me. But then she does something that just blows me away and proves she is far braver than I am.

Sometimes nurture wins over nature.

[canknitian]

I remember feeling that way about swimming lessons. And a lot of things. But I know that the "just keep doing it" thing and the "you're not going anywhere until you do it missy" thing helped a lot.

Even if I had no idea what I was supposed to be learning while leaned over the edge of the pool, wearing a lifejacket and postponing a forward roll for as long as possible, it did help in the end. Sometimes it helped reinforce Mum's authority, and sometimes it taught me to believe in myself. Either way, in the long run, it was a very good thing for me. Plus, I love swimming now! Except, that is, for the cellulite...

Mum always said swimming lessons were supposed to help me learn how to cope...a line I heard a lot...especially when I wasn't coping with having to go!

All of that leads to my saying "I hear you" and I'm relieved to hear that it's not all nature. I don't have kids yet (tick tick tick), but this is one of the things that I worry about. Glad to hear that Max is LOVING swimming!

[canknitian]

Good grief. My comments are always embarrassingly long.

[tanyetta]

My brother drowned when I was younger and everytime I tell myself that I should get back in the water, I freeze.

Oddly enough, I made sure my daughter learned to swim and now my 20 month old swims like a fish too!. Go figure. *sigh*

[tallnlucky]

Not at all relevant to your post, except for the swim part: I forged a doctor's note in high school saying I could not participate in the swimming part of phys ed. due to a very serious medical condition.

(I was scared because my boobs were nonexistent)
(Now I would kill for that body.)

Why do we care so much?

[Lisa V]

My kids are almost as uncoordinated as I am at nearly any activity involving balls or baskets or goals or any of it. Yet they play, they don't care if they suck. They play. At least for a couple of seasons. I cringe when I sit on the sidelines realizing my faulty ass genes I've passed on. Yet I cheer at the same time, because they do a ton of things I have never had the guts to do. Talent or not.

[Mel]

My daughter is a lot like me, too--she's almost 4--and I have adopted kids and all I can say is that the experience of motherhood has convinced me that temperament is 90% nature and 10% nurture. Before I adopted babies, I would have told you the opposite.

[Goingape]

You know, given a good enough environment (the average expectable) then your child's nature is the predominant factor in how they will act, so Mel your experience matches up with research.

So..Melissa...don't blame your stuff, or any resemblance of Madison, on you..blame it on genetics and Eve. ;)

[drowninginkids]

I really loved this one. I find it amazing, having two daughters, how one is my mini-me and the other completely different.

You are doing a fantastic job with madison, really.

[Mrs. Kennedy]

I have temporarily conquered cellulite by wearing one of those bathing suits with the cute little skirts.

Jackson won't swim either. He'll be wearing floaties on his arms until he's forty.

[mox]

God, my kid is just like Maddie. I can't tell you how much I wish the kid would be more like Max and embrace the experience but I have a dramatic little person on my hands, and very sensitive too. Which is NOTHING like ME.

Kids are who they are. Not much we can do about it.

[marian]

I used to think that people like your Max were the rule and Maddie the exception but now I think it's the other way around. Max is the rare one blessed with a trusting, happy temperament while Maddie and the rest of us have to "do it anyway." The difference is that she can talk to you about it without being shamed.

This was a beautiful post.

[ozma]

Go, Maddie! I WAS Maddie. You sound so great with her. Lucky Max--how wonderful that he revels in everything that way. Is it something about being a boy? My sisters and I could not be more neurotic but my brothers are very close to sane.

You are so right that temperments are often there from the start and the parent's job is just to usher these insanely complex creatures to adulthood with some survival skills--some of us may be naturally inclined to freak out no matter what our parents were like. Do it anyway is a great gift to your daughter.

There is another side to my personality which karmically comes back to me through my daughter. I guess you could call it fussiness. In other words, damn this world! Why is it so full of FLAWS? The other day she cried because "my banana broke in half." And I had to think 'Wow. You really ARE my daughter.' Sometimes I'll hear myself saying things like "But it's not the right KIND of milk!" and realize the horrifying future that lies in store.

[gorillabuns]

i don't swim but hope my girls will learn. my older daughter of 3 years old always asks of the nonexistent bathing suit, "mommy, you are going to put on your bathing suit?" i always reply in like of the non existent bathing suit, "only kids swim, mommy's don't, mommy's melt from the sun." it's working for me....

[Momtowolf]

i remember feeling the same way. I was on the swim team and afraid to dive from the platforms. My mom talked to the coach and he let me start in the water....that was the begining of feeling differet and weird...I wish my mom would of pushed me to learn to dive...I really didnt' want to feel any different than the other kids....imagaine a race is starting and 9 kids are diving from the platform and I'm in the water......OKAY not that being different isn't okay but it game me a complex.....just my .02¢

also have you seen my blog of flickr photos? I'm a big mama and I have no problem putting a swimsuit on and getting in the pool. Those little skirt swimsuits are totally popular right now and cute even!!!!! Go for it Melissa!!!!!

[jozet]

Ah, yes. We're right there with you with my 7 and 5 yo. The 7yo is my fish. The 5yo is my land lubber. But yes, she does it anyway. I have mixed feelings about it. I supposed that if she were clinging to my leg in pretrified fear, I'd back off. But she's just...unhappily uncertain although willing to keep going, keep plowing through her own uncertainty, with mommy encouraging her silently from the viewing area.

I am teling her, however, that unlike dance class and soccer, learning to swim is a non-negotiable. Like going to the dentist. Or learning to strip wallpaper. Just one of those things you have to do if you are a human and plan to live on a planet that has a lot of water on it.

[mamaloo]

I so identify with you and Maddie. Have I ever *not* had that self-critical, self-doubting, self-conscious voice in my head? I don't remember not having it. What I wouldn't give to have had a mother who could understand me and would have been there for me (mine wasn't inadequate she was dead very young unfortunately). you may despise it and who could blame you, but the blessing is you are equipped to help her. and that's awesome.

[Jet Pass]

I'm glad that Maddie is learning to swim, and I'm glad that she's pushing herself past her fears. I would love to see you take lessons with her, along side her so she can see even when you're scared you do it anyways. For the safety of your child you really should learn how to swim.

[Melissa Summers]

Jet Pass, read it again. I *can* swim, I mostly choose not to.

"I told her I don't like to swim very often anymore but I can swim if I needed to."

Don't you worry about the safety of my child, I can do that for myself and don't really need the internet to do it for me.