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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

if you are paying for swimming lessons, you should swim

172 replies

talkiinpeace · 04/12/2015 21:20

You are coughing up good cash to pay for your kids to be strong and confident in the water

so why do you sit at the side, bone dry, playing on your phone

Use that 20 minutes to burn a few calories and make it abundantly clear to your kids that their lessons are worth something
and plough half a mile

all else is hypocricy

OP posts:
megletthesecond · 05/12/2015 15:39

tp we can't swim at the same time as lessons because the pool is lessons only.

And I'd rather not be in the pool as the same time as 50 piddling children. . I wait until the filter has run through before I do lane swimming.

megletthesecond · 05/12/2015 15:42

..... come to think of it. On a couple of occasions I have a sprinted to the gym for 20 mins while they swim. It's hard to get a decent work out In that time though. Depends on everything I need being free.

RebootYourEngine · 05/12/2015 15:56

In the words of Billie Piper 'because i want to'

shutupandshop · 05/12/2015 15:58

Here op have a headwobble

LonelySatsuma · 05/12/2015 16:05

I just can't be arsed, and I'm not ashamed.

I break my neck to race home from work every day and take my DC to after school activities. That half an hour 'playing with my iPhone' (actually, I prefer a coffee and a good book) while they learn something and have fun is precious to me.

Shall I kick a ball about on the pitch while they go to football lessons, too? Should I break into tune when they have music lessons? Or shake a leg when they go to dance class?

Be reasonable! Grin

vic1981 · 05/12/2015 16:09

Bitter, much?

Hawest1 · 05/12/2015 16:14

Personally I love swimming with my kids! But I also would like them to attend lessons without me aswell.
My 3yo recently gained confidence in the pool with armbands & I love nothing more than doing laps of the shallow end with him, but feel someone else would get a lot further in trying to teach him how to swim independently, he seems to listen a bit better when things come from a teacher etc. Therefore if I ended up in the pool beside him at lessons I feel he wouldn't benefit from it fully & would be easily distracted. Our local pool is only one small pool so when lessons are on it is closed to the public so I wouldn't be allowed to swim at that time anyway.
Also 20mins to myself would be a bonus!!! Plus I also have a 1yr old so really that 20mins would probably be spent running about after him anyway.

neverputasockinatoaster · 05/12/2015 16:15

Because my DCs have AScs and so I have to be on hand to manage a meltdown, stop them having a panic attack, prevent them from hurting someone in a rage of they get splashed by mistake....... I wouldn't look at my phone though... I need to be alert!
(And the above is why my kids don't have lessons... we take them at weekends when we can be in the water with them at all times)

This is the same reason that I now do karate and have a grading tomorrow.. It's easier to be on hand in a karate class than if I was off swimming round a different part of the pool.

PaulAnkaTheDog · 05/12/2015 16:36

Hahaha! What a ridiculous thread.

ReginaBlitz · 05/12/2015 18:49

I'm sure a swimming instructor would appreciate a parent flapping about in the water like a twat while they are trying to teach. What a load of bollocks.

Iggi999 · 05/12/2015 19:35

I think it might be the frock buying that is pissing off the OP - perceived smugness? Who knows. Would you judge them less if they were on mumsnet?

RiverTam · 05/12/2015 19:51

I'm on my phone because it's quite boring but the one time I went for a swim DD wouldn't stop crying when she looked up into the gallery and couldn't see me. She loses confidence very easily with swimming so if I have to spend half an hour sitting up on a boiling hot balcony to help her out, so be it. It's got absolutely fuck all to do with you, you judgemental bint.

Skang · 05/12/2015 19:57

I have never seen a swimming lesson set up where parents could swim at the same time. What a bizarre thing to get upset about.

TheOldestCat · 05/12/2015 19:59

my two DC share a lesson - sometimes I swim with one of them while the other is learning. If not I sit on the side going through work emails as it's the day before my working days start (am part time). This helps me keep my job which pays for their lessons. So hypocrisy is fine with me.

TheOldestCat · 05/12/2015 20:02

Also I bloody love swimming on my own and completely loathe taking the DC swimming. Am I alone? Think it's important they learn to swim though.

ScrambledEggAndToast · 05/12/2015 20:02

I have epilepsy and am not able to swim unaccompanied. Therefore I haven't been swimming in 14 years GrinPlenty of different reasons OP.

elfycat · 05/12/2015 20:06

There's no adult swimming in the lesson time.

I have to stay on the side of the pool until my child reaches 8 years and a certain hat colour.

Because it's 30 minutes of crochet/writing/social media time I get in my week.

Because I don't care about judgemental bitches/bastards who have any opinion on what I should be doing doing.

elfycat · 05/12/2015 20:07

Apologies for the extra doing.

Saukko · 06/12/2015 09:23

Parents aren't allowed in, you weirdo.

They see me swim when I take them swimming.

'Hypocrisy' indeed. 'Hypocrisy' is posting on the internet about how sitting and using the internet is bad parenting.

Dornan · 06/12/2015 22:56

Talkin

"yummy mummy ladies who lunch"

I'm assuming that this means nicely presented, affluent looking women?

What on earth about these women offends you? And why would you care if they were buying a dress?

Nothing about being a
'yummy mummy lady who lunches' precludes them from being excellent mothers.

Lightbulbon · 06/12/2015 23:04

But it's ok for their fathers not to even be there?

You're a misogynist and your dcs will grow up just like you. Sad

greenfolder · 07/12/2015 06:58

Because I hate swimming with an absolute passion.

Enjolrass · 07/12/2015 07:08

May be they are buying 'frocks' then so they don't have to do it when they and the children are at home, so the children have their full attention then.

Dd has guitar lessons. I sit in the teachers kitchen (on my phone) while she has the lesson. I also sit on my phone while she is kick boxing. I also kick box, but at a different time.

I have to sneakily look at her because if i stare at her it distracts her and she spends more time trying to judge what I think about her machine gun technique.

If I pretend not to watch and look outbid the corner of my eye she does far better.

Dh also doesn't play football when he takes ds.

It's ridiculous to say because a child is doing an activity that a parents should do the same.

SweetAdeline · 07/12/2015 08:07

This poster is talkiinpeace not talkinpeace, no idea if they are one and the same.

PrimalLass · 07/12/2015 08:12

all else is hypocricy

Or not being allowed in the pool because it is full of four sets of lessons going on at once.