Swimming parties for little children are the absolute worst kind of party

[Tittie]

I love swimming, whether it’s swimming lengths alone, swimming with the kids, lazing in the pool on holiday. It’s my favourite exercise and I regularly hire the local small, WARM, private pools for family to play. HOWEVER. Swimming parties for younger children are the absolute worst and I think it’s so inconsiderate of parents to organise them. We have been invited to a Y1 age swimming party where parents must also be in the water. It’s so awful on multiple counts and I wish they’d be banned!

1. our leisure centre is freezing. The water is freezing. The air is freezing. You can’t get in and warm up with proper swimming or do lengths or anything because the kids just want to stand in the shallow bit and splash
2. I don’t want to hang out nearly naked with dads I don’t know
3. The leisure centre smells or urine and I don’t want verrucas
4. Many parents feel very uncomfortable standing around awkwardly in swimwear with parents they don’t know
5. Pressure to shave and sort bikini line, lest the other parents bitch about you (I’ve seen that happen)
6. Not all of us have spare adults to go in our place

These parents do swimming parties every year (even when their kid was 3!!) and they get family help so they don’t need to get in. They’re not even ‘making the memories’ with their kids. Party child mum is always beautifully made up, meanwhile we will all look sodden and bare faced, stinking of chlorine.

I have taken the eldest to a Y5(ish) party before, at a shallow pool. We didn’t have to get in, we watched carefully and had nice chats. Marvellous.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk and if you’re thinking of doing this for your kids, don’t. There are hundreds of other possibilities that children and grown ups alike will love. Drop offs preferred 😂

No I’m sorry it’s discos 😬

Oh jog on. Who wants to stand half naked with the parents from school. Absolutely no chance.

I don't think it's the faff.

Many people are uncomfortable in swimming costumes and not everyone has childcare for other children.

It really is best to consider all this when organising a party.

Around here, you are more likely to find the dads at the gym, cycling or on the golf course on Saturday mornings, so it's the rest of the family who has to get up early if they are invited to a party that's ridiculously early 😂

100 times yes. I’d decline a swimming party without question.

I disagree, it's a kids party, not your wedding. They always have enough friends to join in.

If you start organising a party that is "convenient" for other families, you're never going to manage anything. People can say yes, or no.

My kids have been invited to a lot of parties that were not "convenient", but if they want to go, we'll make it work.It's never a big deal.

Would be nice if they could miss golf or gym once in a while to take their kids to a party though wouldn't it.

I don't know, I am at the gym with them and my girlfriends 😂
We take turn with DH

You seem to have a problem with dads in general, I am guessing your in an argument with your partner?

When i turned 10 my mad mother invited my whole class for a swimming party then back to our house for tea! It was a private pool, so one lifeguard. I don't think parents were there, but maybe they were. They definitely weren't in the water. Some girls could barely swim so were wearing arm bands. 25m with the end being 2m deep then a 3.5m deep diving pit.
One very skinny girl turned blue after 5 minutes (her mum was there) so had to change and wait for the rest of us for nearly an hour.
Not quite sure what my mother was thinking!

Depends how you want people to respond to the invitation.

If you want to keep numbers down, perhaps it's a good idea to increase discomfort and inconvenience or to choose a marmite activity that some people won't enjoy.

Incidentally, the urine smell is usually due to lack of floor cleaning. It’s from a build of organic matter such as body oils, skins flakes, sweat, cosmetics etc. I expect the leisure centre has drain flies too which are also attracted to this organic matter. The joy…..

But it doesn't work like that, does it. Most people might roll their eyes and think it's inconvenient or a weird idea, but their kids will go anyway.

Absolutely nothing will be convenient for your all guests, but if most kids are super excited about a "pool party" or inflatable for example, and parents have to be there, pretty much everyone will be.

You guessed wrong, I chose a father for my children who was happy to pull his weight and was as involved with organising their parties as I was. He also managed to play golf occasionally and get the odd lie in, as did I. Now they are grown up we still like each other, because he wasn't a twat who went to the gym every weekend and left me to take the kids to all the parties.

I just wouldn't go
I couldn't imagine how unsanitary it is

I've only been to one swimming party, for Yr 2 dcs so not all of them could swim, but the pool was shallow enough that they could stand up. Parents were expected to wear swimsuits, but not need to enter the water and most of them didn't, so they sat around the edge mostly covered up. But I did have to go in, because I brought a younger sibling (who was invited too) and needed to support her in the water.
It was OK, I did feel self conscious but not mortified at being in a swimsuit (I always wear knee-length shorts so don't worry much about bikini line) and the kids had fun. We go swimming as a family every weekend and all the other families in the pool see me then, so I'm used to it, nobody cares. It was a council leisure pool, sole use for the party and it was a bit cold (we put wetsuits on my dds as we're used to council pools and they are always cold). But it was nice for dd to do an activity with their mates, that was a bit unusual (at least for them to do it as a group) and that's all I ever really want at a kid's birthday party. We never turn down party invites as it's just a good way for the kids to get together and enjoy an activity together.

I don't mind swimming parties, even if I have to get in the pool. I promise I didn't think about my own bikini line, let alone anyone else's.

I'd object if the party parents weren't in the pool though, that seems a bit rubbish!

The worst swimming party I was ever invited to was one in a private pool (no lifeguard or anything) when my dc was in yr 5 where adults were expected to sit in the bar, leaving the dc with no supervision whatsoever. I was the only parent who didn't think it was ok and it was really awkward!

Don't be daft. Anyway, everyone knows everyone around here, and if you do go swimming, then the locals will see you, fellow parents included!

But when I take my kids swimming as a family, regardless of the venue, they actually swim. Something about the party environment, at the v. v. shallow end where they can wander in and out with their friends, makes all the kids just splash about. I would know, I’ve been to several of these! So I’ll be stuck freezing my tits off and shin deep in cold water, getting splashed, unable to submerge myself or warm up with actual swimming, talking to dads I don’t know. Because none of the mums go.

It’s not about ‘riff raff’, it’s about being able to go to a nice, clean, warm pool. Private pools are the only option for this where we live.

I have never needed to hang out nearly naked at the gym with other adults though? I wear gym clothes and work out, and then I go home. When I go to adult swim sessions, again, I swim and then go home. I am not obliged to stand around and chat in my sports bra and knickers, wet and cold and getting splashed. While supervising children. It’s not the same!

Why the urgency to have swim parties this young? Why not wait a few years until we don’t have to get in? Why not choose a nicer pool? Why not choose another lovely party idea that everyone can enjoy? It’s all so inconsiderate!

Under absolutely no circumstances whatsoever in a million years would I be doing this.

Swimming parties really only suitable for older children who are old enough to swim on their own with the required number of lifeguards etc. No children's party should require other parents to get into the pool and I would sadly have had to decline an invite for my DC if I had been required to do so. However, once they are e.g over 9 or 10 (whatever is the lower adult:child ratio) then a pool inflatable or pool slides party is fun.

I love a leisure centre! Just not the one near us. It’s truly horrible. It’s being knocked down soon to be replaced with something nicer, so it appears they’ve stopped cleaning or heating it until that happens.

Why is it inconsiderate? Presumably that's what their dc wants for their birthday, and there's no obligation to go if you don't want to?

Make sure to remove mascara and bring a costume before a swimming party 🤣

I remember it well; making small talk with James’ dad Dave while stood waist deep in cold water in a swim suit. Such fun 🤦🏻‍♀️🤣

yeah, wait till they're all swimming well can go in on their own for an inflatable session or something.