There’s a strange phenomenon among women, I’ve noticed. Have you ever sat next to another mother — be it at a park, during a class, a place where you’re both watching your kids do something and suddenly the other mother starts confiding all sorts of things in you? I don’t know if it comes from a need to just talk to another human being besides your kids, or maybe it’s for some kind of validation that you’re doing everything right?
So, I’m at the pool last week watching my 4-year old try to master the art of bubble blowing while moving her arms. A woman sitting next to me is watching her 18-month old son scream hysterically while a teacher tries to sing to him and make him comfortable in the water. The kid is screaming and crying, I mean red face, endless tears everytime he looks at his mother sitting there. She starts telling me that she doesn’t like getting in the water (it makes her skin itchy) and she wants this to be an activity he can do without her. She went on to relay her guilt about letting her babysitter take him to a music class and her plans for private swim lessons the next week so her son can hit some kind of swimming milestone.
I’m thinking, “Get this kid out of the pool now!” He’s 18 months! If he hates it, let it be for a while. All of this is so completely none of my business but because she has decided to confide so much in me, should I let her know, gently, what I think about the whole swimming debacle? I suggest to her, that maybe he needs a break and that next year when he is all of 2, he might be more ready. She agrees, but I already feel that I have crossed the line.
