Swim Mom

Parenting an athlete:

    From a young age my husband and I had both agreed we would put our kids in sports because, we felt it was a great way to stay fit, give them responsibility and occupy their minds. We tried every sport in the book (ballet, dance, gymnastics and tennis) but, my oldest daughter who at the time was about 5, did not have any coordination but, I wasn’t going to give up. After some research and realizing she loved the water so much we put her in swimming. It was the best decision we ever made. It is a very difficult and time consuming sport but, the benefits are worth it all. The older they get the more it demands. Currently both my girls swim competitively and they have been doing so for a little over 4 years. As a parent, you have no life. You live driving from the pool and back home daily and to swim meets early mornings, like 7AM morning! Yikes! Sometimes, you even have to return in the afternoons if they made finals or if the age groups have been split up. My best friends are baseball moms and football moms and I can tell you they all live at the park and in tournaments. The things we do for our kids! At times, I want to tell them, “its okay, stay home today” but, I know I can’t. Talk about exhausting. I think we all have the same goals: to give our children more opportunities in life, to keep them away from bad, to succeed in all they do and to become good human beings and I can tell you that the sport is definitely helping with all of it. It’s an immense sacrifice for us parents, financially, emotionally, mentally and physically. Hopefully one day our kids will realize all we have done for them and be very thankful. Wishful thinking. I highly recommend any sport for children and make sure they stick to it, thru good and bad, you’ll be glad you did and so will they.  

Photo Cred: @ShootnStars