to HATE taking my children swimming with a PASSION, hatred of a degree that makes me a madwoman?

[Oliveoil]

get up early
breakfast
out
in the changing room
cold
OTHER PEOPLE
in pool
cold
OTHER PEOPLE
drag the time out until I can stand NO MORE
out
cold
OTHER PEOPLE
home
baths x 2
wasted morning

repeat every week

that will be £10 please (parking, admission, choc from machine after)

Don't do it then. I never have

well, yes, but they need to learn to swim don't they?

and I can't force dd1 to do lessons if she doesn't want to, dh can't take them both as one or the other wants holding a lot of the time

so we both have to go [grits teeth]

Hate paying five quid for the privilege of standing in cold, chlorinated water and having other people's brats kick more cold, chlorinated water over me while I watch mine on the slides for an hour. Yuk. I try to get out of it whenever possible.

I hated it with a vengeance. However I am so crap at swimming myself didn't want them to grow up with the same handicap, so at least they can now both save themselves (& me if i misguidedly tried to jump in to help them out) Still remember the disproportionate joy of finding an empty family changing room on the day, the awful smell of chlorine (why is it linked to smelly socks?) & embarrassment of being asked why I had a "hairy front bottom" by a friend's child!

My eldest didn't go into a pool until she was 5. Then "told" she was having swimming lessons [harsh mother] and now swims like a fish. And goes on her own - result. I was a single mother who couldn't/can't swim so easy decision for me.

Gave it up for all the reasons above (especially the awful moistness combined with awful heat, noise and general muckiness), but especially because it was £3.50 to watch DS2 fail to learn to swim week after week after week in a HUGE class. He would walk across the pool about 7 times per lesson which was 50p per walk.

Olive, you'd love our new pools, honest
They are so fab - tropically warm, we have a changing "village" so families can all change together (and take turns in hoisting damp little girls into their leggings) and spotlessly clean. Our bit of London "does" swimming pretty well - we also have flume-infested nightmares nearby too. But this new build for "real swimming" is so simple and cleanly done, it's a joy. And packed with happy swimmers of all shapes and sizes.

It's not so bad in the summer months when I am wearing three quarter length trousers or shorter skirts with sandals.
Different story in the winter when jeans/trousers get soaked on the floor as I try to step into them when getting dressed.
I usually cover the little bench with a towel and stand my son on it whilst I dry and dress him. So his clothes stay dry...but if I were to stand on the bench I am quite sure I would be arrested for spying on others getting changed in surrounding cubicles!!!

Best part of swimming? Listening to all the cubicle conversations that go on round about!! (But then I am nosey)

I am surprised that you all hate it-I took them from babies-one of my favourite outings!

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love it! Orinoco - you sum up my trips precisely! My 2 are just 3 and 2 so I have to add that I spend half the time jumping out the pool with legs wobbling to chase after them as they run around the pool. Oh and give the spectators a right eyeful when I bend over to to put on arm bands! You also have to avoid the bored peepholes in the communal changing cubicles!

Don't really like taking my 2 dds by myself as i have to stay in the baby pool, bored out of my mind.
But lately, my DH who is a total non-swimmer has started to come with us, so he gets to look after DDs and i can go to the big pool and have some fun.
Even got myself some goggles and ear plugs so that i can swim underwater (used to manage a width totally underwater when i was younger, and last week even managed to float on my back for a whole lenght.
But the one thing that annoys me about swimming pools, are the people who hog the showers.
There was a whole familly (about 5) all using one shower each, not even washing, just standing under it.
My DDs had just got out of the pool and wanted to warm up under the shower, but would the father move his little girl to be with him?
Of course not, my DD2 (aged 3), just got under with the girl, who promptly pushed her out, did the dad say anything? NO.
Luckily for him, by then someone else had moved so we all got under one shower, with the shower hoggers looking on.

I hate it with passion.

My mum seems to enjoy it.

She takes ds when she looks after him.

Thank god.

I used to do a lot of swimming/training as a teen, but can't stand public swimming, especially public swimming plus small child.

Standing round in a cold pool/cold changing rooms with puddles on floor/small child flinging clothes in said puddles/smell of chlorine over both of us/having to sort out all wet gear when get home.

None is my idea of fun.

The swimming bit is ok but all the changing, bathing, wet hair and OTHER PEOPLE palavar is a drag. That's why it's dh's 'special time' with them

I hate it but manage to avoid it these days(mostly) thanks to dh and swimming lessons. But I love it when they arrive home tired out, chilled and already showered.

I go swimming three times a week...on MY OWN. It is blissful. I troll up and down, hatted and goggled and flippered, 60 times, with moronic determination.

And then I take DD1 to her swimming lesson. And sit on the side with my clothes on.

I refuse to go because I hate it so much. I do want DD to be able to swim but I'm getting her into the local beavers where they do swimming lessons for £1. I don't have to swim in other peoples piss then

my dh takes them both swimming olive
he can manage both
mne are the same age as yours

and why the baths when you get home?

I like taking my two swimming. We'll be going soon.

They now swim better than I do (not hard) so I can let them bomb up and down while I lounge in the hot tub on the side of the pool!

I like swimming with my son, but only with anither adult there to help, otherwise it's hard work. Our local kid's pool is heated, too

Hate it.

Dh takes both gilrs, has odne for the past 18 months.

And he showers thema and washed their hair at the pool, so that saves me another job!

And dd1 has swimming lessons at school now.

Yuk, most hated thing ever.

Wrinkled prune like skin, squelch squelch all the time including car on the way home, totally destroyed hairstyle, skin needs an entire body moisturise afterwards....and all those germs

HATE IT. I break out into a menopausal sweat the minute I cross the threshold of the building.

I loathe trying to squeeze still damp children into clothes that have been dragged around a hair infested slimy floor. Makes me sweat even more.

All those feet...all those bodies... fannies and willies swishing about in the water.

God it makes me feel ill just thinking about it.

Yes I hate it too but do it out of duty: - verucas, wet kids whingeing as you try and cram them into dry clothes, horrible loos, getting there and finding the baby pool is closed due to an "incident", parking fees, washing the costumes out afterwards over the bath. Yep, great thread!