💬 Wish I'd learned to swim as a kid, now my daughter is teaching me

I can't swim. I'm nearly 40 and I've never been past my waist in a pool. Growing up in the old city there was no pool nearby, only a muddy tank behind our school. The big boys jumped from the wall into it. I'd stand there holding everyone's slippers. Nobody pushed me and nobody offered. After a while I just stopped asking. Now my daughter is 10 and swims like a fish. She learned in 3 summers at a club pool. Last Sunday she asked me to race her. I said I'd watch and clap. She rolled her eyes. Her friends' fathers were in the water, splashing about. I stood by the edge with her towel. Same spot I used to stand 30 years ago, holding slippers. I only noticed on the drive home. I did try once. At 26 I paid for a trial class at a hotel pool in Somajiguda. The instructor asked me to put my face in the water. I counted to 2 and came up coughing. He said, sir, try again. I said I'd come next week. I never went back. The 800 rupees went on a pair of shoes instead. They've held up well, at least. My daughter has offered to teach me. She says it'll take 2 months if I listen. I told her I'd think about it. She's already booked the pool for the 1st of next month. I'm scared of the deep end, but I'm more scared of her face if I back out. I'll update the thread. Or I'll quietly stop mentioning it, depends how the first class goes.

For me it was cycling, not swimming, everyone around me just seemed to pick it up while I kept falling into the same drainage ditch near our house. My father eventually gave up trying to teach me and my cousin took over instead, which somehow worked better.

Learning to swim as an adult is a different kind of hard, I finally joined a batch at a pool in Kukatpally two years ago and was the oldest person there by a decade. The instructor kept comparing me to the kids in the next lane which did nothing for my confidence. Still glad I did it, though I doubt I will ever look natural in the water like people who learned young.

Slight disagreement from me. I'd swap swimming for knowing basic first aid, which nobody taught us either. Last year at a wedding in Shamshabad a man fell on the stairs and 6 of us just stood there. He was fine. But I signed up for a 2 day course the next month and haven't regretted it. Your daughter racing you is the best motivation though. Kids don't go easy.

I did learn to swim young, but the one I regret not learning is a musical instrument. My parents offered guitar lessons when I was around ten and I turned it down because cricket practice felt more important at the time. Picked up a guitar again last year and my fingers just refuse to cooperate the way they probably would have back then.

Mine is typing. I'm 26 and I still use 2 fingers, and everyone at work watches me do it. Nobody taught us in school, we had one computer lab with 11 machines and 60 students. I tried a typing game last month. It called my speed beginner, to my face. Swimming is a good one though. Your slippers story made me laugh and wince.