Daughter Number Four’s weekly schedule: swimming club, hip-hop dancing, drama, school swimming, song and dance.
But at least we have Friday evenings off. Myself and Herself lie on the floor, panting with exhaustion. Then we order a takeaway and drink wine.
None of this is in lieu of our child’s social life: now that the weather has started to improve a little (or at least, the torrential rain has eased), she’s begun to ask again if she can go down to the park to hang out with her friends. Her energy can be exhausting to witness, and exhausting to facilitate. Yet she genuinely enjoys all the extracurricular activities. We haven’t pushed her to take part in any of them and we don’t have to nag her to keep going. In fact, if she opted to abandon one or two, we wouldn’t be that upset. None of this stuff is free.
The exception is swimming. Myself and Herself are not sporty. Name any sort of team, and we would have been chosen last for it. So, we were a little surprised and increasingly delighted when we started to realise that Daughter Number Four has an aptitude for it. She’s started to sprout impressive shoulders, and in the water, she’s a rocket.
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Our delight stems simply from witnessing her discovery that she’s good at something.
As kids develop, they are figuring out who they are, which is just another way of saying that they are attempting, or hoping, there is something about them that is different from other people. Children are told, and adults tell themselves, that each human is unique. Yet I suspect that secretly, we fear that this is not true at all; that most of us, within certain parameters, are largely the same. And kids can sense this. All the time, they are asked: what school subjects do you like? What do you want to be when you grow up? It can form an unintended pressure: get on with the business of being you.
Yet there are almost certainly plenty of adults for whom this never happened, who never encountered that inspiring teacher or discovered their “passion”. They made do without the glittering distinctiveness we are all supposed to possess.
So, for a child to find something they are good at can come as a relief; and be the first stage of a process. It’s not that swimming will define Daughter Number Four’s life. It’s a building block: it tells her that there may be other things she could be good at too. It tells her that she will have strengths and weaknesses. And that she will have to make choices.
A couple of weeks ago, Herself got an email from the swimming club offering Daughter Number Four a place in a different class, one in which she will start training for competitions – a recognition of her ability and her effort. And while we were very proud of her, and we knew she would be pleased, it required a decision. This new class would clash with one of the after-school showbiz sessions. She’d have to choose.
Following the best parenting advice, we said it was entirely her decision. While subtly trying to steer her towards the swimming.
[ Sonia O’Sullivan: Go and enjoy is the best lesson children can learn about sportOpens in new window ]
She burst into tears. Not unreasonably, she felt it was unfair that she had to make a choice at all; that she had to already diminish one part of her young life in favour of another. We said there was no rush. Think about it.
But when we had a more thorough look at her schedule, we realised it wasn’t so bad anyway. In September, some of the classes will be moved around. She’ll be able to take up the swimming offer, though it also means we’ll be ferrying her five evenings a week. Including Fridays. No wine for us. But we’re fine with that. No, really. We are.
