Swim Parent Quotes

Because the terrible thing about becoming an adult is being forced to realize that absolutely nobody cares about us, we have to deal with everything ourselves now, find out how the whole world works. Work and pay bills, use dental floss and get to meetings on time, stand in line and fill out forms, come to grips with cables and put furniture together, change tires on the car and charge the phone and switch the coffee machine off and not forget to sign the kids up for swimming lessons. We open our eyes in the morning and life is just waiting to tip a fresh avalanche of "Don't Forget!"s and "Remember!"s over us. We don't have time to think or breathe, we just wake up and start digging through the heap, because there will be another one dumped on us tomorrow. We look around occasionally, at our place of work or at parents' meetings or out in the street, and realize with horror that everyone else seems to know exactly what they're doing. We're the only ones who have to pretend. Everyone else can afford stuff and has a handle on other stuff and enough energy to deal with even more stuff. And everyone else's children can swim.

First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches. May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty. When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer. Guide her, protect her When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age. Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit. May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers. Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait. O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed. And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it. And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

You can't cling to the side your whole life, that one lesson every parent needs to teach a child is "If you don't want to sink, you better figure out how to swim

Emma this is not a joke. Look at your hands! They're... they're... wrinkled!" "Yes that's because-" "No way. I'm not going down for this. This isn't my fault." "Toraf-" "Galen will find some way to blame me though. He always does. 'You wouldn't have gotten caught if you didn't swim so close to that boat, tadpole.' No it couldn't be the humans fault for fishing in the first place-" "Toraf." "Or how about. 'Maybe if you'd stop trying to kiss my sister, she'd stop bashing your head with a rock.' How does my kissing her have anything to do with her bashing my head with a rock? If you ask me, it's just a result of poor parenting-" "Toraf." "Oh and my favorite: 'If you play with a lionfish, you're going to get pricked.' I wasn't playing with it! I was just helping it swim faster by grabbing its fins-" "TOR-AF." He stops pacing along the water, even seems to remember that I exist. "Yes, Emma? What were you saying?

Dad kept telling me that he loved me, that he never would have let me drown, but you can’t cling to the side your whole life, that one lesson every parent needs to teach a child is “If you don’t want to sink, you better figure out how to swim.

I wonder how it turns out that we all lead such different lives. Take you and your sister, for example. You're born to the same parents, you grow up in the same household, you're both girls. How do you end up with such wildly different personalities?...One puts on a bikini like little semaphore flags and lies by the pool looking sexy, and the other puts on her school bathing suit and swims her heart out like a dolphin...

My parents believe in the principle of ‘sink or swim,’ or ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger ― or it kills you.” From “The Education of Robert Nifkin

Flora would have liked to ask her parents why the words ‘to father’ have such a different meaning from the words ‘to mother’.

I am Outcast." "The kids behind me laugh so loud I know they’re laughing about me. I can’t help myself. I turn around. It’s Rachel, surrounded by a bunch of kids wearing clothes that most definitely did not come from the EastSide Mall. Rachel Bruin, my ex-best friend. She stares at something above my left ear. Words climb up my throat. This was the girl who suffered through Brownies with me, who taught me how to swim, who understood about my parents, who didn’t make fun of my bedroom. If there is anyone in the entire galaxy I am dying to tell what really happened, it’s Rachel. My throat burns." "Her eyes meet mine for a second. “I hate you,” she mouths silently.

Grow up with me,Let’s run in fields and through the dark together,Fall off swings and burn special things,And both play outside in bad weather,Let’s eat badly,Let’s watch adults drink wine and laugh at their idiocy,Let’s sit in the back of the car making eye contact with strangers driving past,Making them uncomfortable,Not caring, not swearing, don’t look,Let’s both reclaim our superpowers, The ones we all have and lose with our milk teeth,The ability not to fear social awkwardness,The panic when locked in the cellar, still sure there’s something down there,And while picking through pillows each feather,Let’s both stay away from the edge of the bed,Forcing us closer together,Let’s sit in public, with ice-cream all over both our faces,Sticking our tongues out at passers-by,Let’s cry, let’s swim, let’s everything,Let’s not find it funny, lest someone falls over,Classical music is boring,Poetry baffles us both,There’s nothing that’s said is what’s meant,Plays are long, tiresome, sullen and filled With hours that could be spent rolling down hills and grazing our knees on cement,Let’s hear stories and both lose our innocence,Learn about parents and forgiveness,Death and morality,Kindness and heart,Thus losing both of our innocent hearts,But at least we wont do it apart,Grow up with me.

Most people wait for their parents to die with a mixture of tremendous sadness and plans for a new swimming pool.

Father, I am from a different egg than your other children. Think of me as a duckling raised by hens. I am not a domestic bird destined to spend his life in a chicken coop. The water that scares you rejuvenates me. For unlike you I can swim, and swim I shall. The ocean is my homeland. If you are with me, come to the ocean. If not, stop interfering with me and go back to the chicken coop.

Sometimes life feels a certain way that we call “absurd”: nothing matters, all efforts are for naught, everything seems random and perverse, positive intention is perpetually thwarted. This stance communicates darkness and edginess, which can feel like wisdom. But we don’t live as if life is absurd; we live as if it has meaning and makes sense. We live (or try to) by kindness, loyalty, friendship, aspiration to improvement, believing the best of other people. We assume causality and continuity of logic. And we find, through living, that our actions do matter, very much. We can be a good parent or a bad parent, we can drive safely or like a maniac. Our minds can feel clean and positive and clear or polluted and negative. To have an ambition and pursue it feels healthy. A life without earnest striving is a nightmare. (When desire vanishes from a normal life, that is called depression.)

I do not believe in the government of the lash, if any one of you ever expects to whip your children again, I want you to have a photograph taken of yourself when you are in the act, with your face red with vulgar anger, and the face of the little child, with eyes swimming in tears and the little chin dimpled with fear, like a piece of water struck by a sudden cold wind. Have the picture taken. If that little child should die, I cannot think of a sweeter way to spend an autumn afternoon than to go out to the cemetery, when the maples are clad in tender gold, and little scarlet runners are coming, like poems of regret, from the sad heart of the earth—and sit down upon the grave and look at that photograph, and think of the flesh now dust that you beat. I tell you it is wrong; it is no way to raise children! Make your home happy. Be honest with them. Divide fairly with them in everything.

Gay people getting married is not a threat to the institution of marriage. You know what's a threat to the institution of marriage? Infidelity is! Hate is! Unforgiveness is! Apathy is! Coldheartedness is! Fear is! And you know what's a threat to the kids? It’s not having gay parents! Most gay kids have straight parents! And plenty of gay parents raise respectable, straight kids! The threat to children isn't their parents being gay; the threat to children is their parents not loving one another! Not caring for one another! Not being crazy about each other! Domestic violence is a threat to children. Stupidity is a threat to children. A swimming pool in the backyard with no supervision is a threat to children!

The tear on my mother’s cheek got larger and larger. It detached from her face and became a shiny globe, widening outward like an inflating balloon. At first the tear floated in the air between them, but as it expanded it took my mother and father into itself. I saw them suspended, separate but beginning to slowly drift towards one another. Then my mother looked past my father’s shoulder, looked through the bright skin of the tear, at me. The tear enlarged until at last, it took me in, too. It was warm and salt. As soon as I got used to the strange light inside the tear, I began to swim clumsily towards my parents.

A parent you know nothing about has a lot of imaginative potential.

...the young swans as big as their parents now, but still grey and it looks peculiar, like two different species swimming in a line, alike in all their movements, and no doubt they think they are the same, while everyone can see that they are not.

In Levitt’s view, economics is a science with excellent tools for gaining answers but a serious shortage of interesting questions. His particular gift is the ability to ask such questions. For instance: If drug dealers make so much money, why do they still live with their mothers? Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What really caused crime rates to plunge during the past decade? Do real-estate agents have their clients’ best interests at heart? Why do black parents give their children names that may hurt their career prospects?

Anyways, it made me think. Who the hell cares if Michael Phelps can swim across a pool at like warp speed? Or that some sixteen-year-old waif can spell the entire Chinese alphabet with a stupid ribbon on a stick above her head? You know who’s holding this world together and leaping buildings in a single bound every day? Moms, that’s who.

My son, you are just an infant now, but on that day when the world disrobes of its alluring cloak, it is then that I pray this letter is in your hands. Listen closely, my dear child, for I am more than that old man in the dusty portrait beside your bed. I was once a little boy in my mother’s arms and a babbling toddler on my father's lap. I played till the sun would set and climbed trees with ease and skill. Then I grew into a fine young man with shoulders broad and strong. My bones were firm and my limbs were straight; my hair was blacker than a raven's beak. I had a spring in my step and a lion's roar. I travelled the world, found love and married. Then off to war I bled in battle and danced with death. But today, vigor and grace have forsaken me and left me crippled. Listen closely, then, as I have lived not only all the years you have existed, but another forty more of my own. My son, We take this world for a permanent place; we assume our gains and triumphs will always be; that all that is dear to us will last forever. But my child, time is a patient hunter and a treacherous thief: it robs us of our loved ones and snatches up our glory. It crumbles mountains and turns stone to sand. So who are we to impede its path? No, everything and everyone we love will vanish, one day. So take time to appreciate the wee hours and seconds you have in this world. Your life is nothing but a sum of days so why take any day for granted? Don't despise evil people, they are here for a reason, too, for just as the gift salt offers to food, so do the worst of men allow us to savor the sweet, hidden flavor of true friendship. Dear boy, treat your elders with respect and shower them with gratitude; they are the keepers of hidden treasures and bridges to our past. Give meaning to your every goodbye and hold on to that parting embrace just a moment longer--you never know if it will be your last. Beware the temptation of riches and fame for both will abandon you faster than our own shadow deserts us at the approach of the setting sun. Cultivate seeds of knowledge in your soul and reap the harvest of good character. Above all, know why you have been placed on this floating blue sphere, swimming through space, for there is nothing more worthy of regret than a life lived void of this knowing. My son, dark days are upon you. This world will not leave you with tears unshed. It will squeeze you in its talons and lift you high, then drop you to plummet and shatter to bits . But when you lay there in pieces scattered and broken, gather yourself together and be whole once more. That is the secret of those who know. So let not my graying hairs and wrinkled skin deceive you that I do not understand this modern world. My life was filled with a thousand sacrifices that only I will ever know and a hundred gulps of poison I drank to be the father I wanted you to have. But, alas, such is the nature of this life that we will never truly know the struggles of our parents--not until that time arrives when a little hand--resembling our own--gently clutches our finger from its crib. My dear child, I fear that day when you will call hopelessly upon my lifeless corpse and no response shall come from me. I will be of no use to you then but I hope these words I leave behind will echo in your ears that day when I am no more. This life is but a blink in the eye of time, so cherish each moment dearly, my son.

My nerves came back in full force. I'd thrown myself in the deep end, and, feeling like I had no idea how to swim, I had to get back to shore somehow. "I'm sorry," I whispered.

Such is the lot of the narcissist's child, to inherit her parent's umbrage over the world's indifference.

That’s what parents do for their kids, son. We’d go to the ends of the Earth if we had to, even if it meant we had to walk over hot coals and swim with fucking sharks. I hated seeing you drowning.

...The very worst events in life have that effect on a family: we always remember, more sharply than anything else, the last happy moment before everything fell apart. The second before the crash, the ice-cream in the gas station just before the accident, the last swim on holiday before we came home and received the diagnosis. Our memories always force us back to those very best moments, night after night, prompting the questions: "Could I have done anything differently? Why did I just go around being happy? If only I'd known what was going to happen, could I have stopped it?"...Everyone has a thousand wishes before a tragedy, but just one afterward. When a child is born, its parents dream of it being as unique as possible, until it gets ill, when suddenly all they want is for everything to be normal.

We were curious. We went seeking our tribe. And yes, I know there are people who’ll say I’m crazy. But just look at those people. Rag, Tag & Bobtail to a man. I’ll tell you about them, shall I? They’re victims of a conditioning in which authority figures such as parents, teachers, the media, religious leaders, politicians and even their mates – especially their mates actually - define what they think. Their cultural values define their beliefs and ultimately the way they perceive themselves, and so when they call me crazy, I take it as quite a compliment. My mind, trust me, is deeper than most Rag Tags would ever dare to swim.

Two-year-olds en masse at a swimming pool sounded to Charles like a disaster waiting to happen. Maybe the remarkable thing was not how many children, teachers, and parents associated with this school had died, but that there had not been more.

Junior, stop being orner.” It’s what Mama used to say to us when we were little, and I say it to Junior out of habit. Daddy used to say it sometimes, too, until he said it to Randall one day and Randall started giggling, and then Daddy figured out Randall was laughing because it sounded like ‘horny’. About a year ago I figured out what it was supposed to be after coming across its parent on the vocabulary list for my English class with Miss Dedeaux: ‘ornery’. It made me wonder if there were other words Mama mashed like that. They used to pop up in my head sometime when I was doing the stupidest things: ‘tetrified’ when I was sweeping the kitchen and Daddy came in dripping beer and kicking chairs. ‘Belove’ when Manny was curling pleasure from me with his fingers in mid-swim in the pit. ‘Freegid’ when I was laying in bed in November, curled to the wall like I was going to burrow into another cover or I was making room for a body to lay behind me to make me warm.

I fooled myself into believing I was after closure, when all I really wanted was never to let go. Because, as Alison’s scar was her most sacred vanity, her death was mine. Because I needed a murder mystery. Without one, what choice did I have but to be angry at Alison for making herself so indispensable to me, to all of us, and then being so careless with herself? (Drinking and drugs, a reckless swim, a stupid accident. The police had suggested this basic scenario from the beginning, but my parents had refused to accept it. Why would they have? Why would anyone accept such a sad and pointless story, a tale that was not even cautionary but simply tragic, a shame?) What choice was there, finally, but to admit that I hated Alison every bit as much as I loved her? I hated her while she was alive for the way her dazzling, spectacular self took up the entire spotlight, and I hated her even more for the oppressive shadow she cast with her death. How could I ever be enough? How could I possibly compare to someone who never had to grow up?

Some memories burn brighter, whether because they meant more or because they have assumed greater importance in our minds. Holidays blur together, snowstorms, swimming in the ocean, acts of love, holding our parents’ hands when we are very small, great sadnesses. But there is much we forget too. I have forgotten so much—names, faces, brilliant conversations, days and weeks and months, things I vowed never to for- get, and to fill in the gaps, I conflate the past or make it up entirely. Did that happen to me or to someone else?

We’re encouraged to learn about economics and grammar and geography, but not to know about love. It seems strange to me, how we expect so much from love, and yet devote so little time to understanding it. Like wanting to dive into the sea but having no interest in learning how to swim.

Life happens, pure and simple. No matter how we try to manage it, it has a force beyond logic or coherence. When we swim in the ocean, we allow the water to move our body. We don’t protest, “How dare this wave be so high? It should be low.” We accept that we have no dominion over the ocean.

From that age until seventeen I did all the work done with horses, such as breaking up the land, furrowing, ploughing corn and potatoes, bringing in the crops when harvested, hauling all the wood, besides tending two or three horses, a cow or two, and sawing wood for stoves, etc., while still attending school. For this I was compensated by the fact that there was never any scolding or punishing by my parents; no objection to rational enjoyments, such as fishing, going to the creek a mile away to swim in summer, taking a horse and visiting my grandparents in the adjoining county, fifteen miles off, skating on the ice in winter, or taking a horse and sleigh when there was snow on the ground. While still quite young I had visited Cincinnati, forty-five miles away, several times, alone; also Maysville, Kentucky, often, and once Louisville. The journey to Louisville was a big one for a boy of that day. I had also gone once with a two-horse carriage to Chilicothe, about seventy miles, with a neighbor’s family, who were removing to Toledo, Ohio, and returned alone; and had gone once, in like manner, to Flat Rock, Kentucky, about seventy miles away. On this latter occasion I was fifteen years of age.

Every individual who walks, runs, rides bikes, swims, rows, paddles, skis, shovels or hoes is setting up a line of defence against the mad onslaught of machines; if he is a parent, grandparent, teacher, youth mentor or exercise instructor who also manages to win a few other people over to his side, he is doing an even better job.

(When I ask one swimmer, a middle-aged woman named Kate, how she’d characterize the two clubs, she confides that the Dolphin Club is “like living with your parents—we’re more conservative. The South End is like the frat house. They’re more risky.” Standing next to Kate is her friend, a South Ender, who laughs appreciatively at this.)

It's macaroni soup. Curls of pasta swim in steaming, fragrant broth, and pieces of boiled chicken are all tangled up with them, the meat nearly fallen off the bones. It's comfort food, the kind my parents brought over the ocean with them twenty-five years ago, and the kind that doesn't fit westernized Chinese restaurant menus. My mother used to make it for us for breakfast, before we got older and told her we had no time to eat in the morning if we wanted to make the school bus. For years now it's been only the occasional snack, a rare treat. But I still like it best made with sugar, and so does my brother Lei. Only our older sister Yun asks for it this way, savory and salty.

One generation removed from the enterprise of reproduction, grandparents saw children as genuinely open possibilities. Unlike parents, who needed to see the best parts of themselves duplicated in their offspring, grandparents rarely had such prideful agendas -- and for that very reason, they ironically imprinted more of themselves on the young.

I’m not advocating throwing kids straight into the deep end to see whether they can swim. Instead, it’s a case of starting early to find simple problems for them to solve on their own, problems that can help them build their processes—and a healthy self-esteem. As I look back on my own life, I recognize that some of the greatest gifts I received from my parents stemmed not from what they did for me—but rather from what they didn’t do for me.

An e-reader is super helpful. And no more toe paper cuts. 10. Some kind of sport or recreational activity—soccer, dance, swimming, professional hopscotch. You can do it! I’m trying out my motivational speaking skills here. 11. Pants that button easily. Trust me, when nature calls at school, you’ll be grateful you listened. 12. Your handy-dandy hook. From buttoning pants to lifting a dollar out of your pocket, a good hook is essential. 13. A wide variety of nail polishes. Boys probably don’t care much about this, but when people are staring at our feet as much as they do, we want to look our best. Am I right, ladies, or am I right? 14. Nunchuks. At least until bully spray becomes available. 15. An open heart and eyes. You think you’re the only one out there who feels different? What about that kid sitting alone in the library or out on the sidewalk? 16. Awesome parents. This is a must. 17. Friends who listen.

She slept with her parrot, which she forced to lie on its back, using slaps to overrule the animal’s every natural impulse to not sleep on its back in a bed. Eventually, she’d kill it by washing it in soap and water and setting it to dry before the fire. When she washed her lamb—in the ocean—she dried it by burying it up to its nose in the sand. She did other odd things, like trying to force a blindfolded donkey to swim; and of course, writing a dozen utterly terrifying books for children.

It was this kind of knowledge that led my father to trust what Uncle Pete said when it came to the reproductive timetable. His head on a throw pillow, his shoes off, Madama Butterfly softly playing on my parents’ stereo, Uncle Pete explained that, under the microscope, sperm carrying male chromosomes had been observed to swim faster than those carrying female chromosomes. This assertion generated immediate merriment among the restaurant owners and fur finishers assembled in our living room.

I am a member of the “career-less generation.” Or the “screwed generation.” Unlike previous generations, the members of my generation won’t get jobs and respectable wages straight out of high school, let alone college. We don’t have the means to buy homes and start families in our twenties. We’re the first generation in a while who will be less well off and less secure than their parents’. Strangely, I seemed more okay with this than my parents. Not being able to afford an above-ground swimming pool and a kid wasn’t some heartbreaking tragedy to me.

A second later, Ron had snatched his arm back from around her shoulders; she had dropped The Monster Book of Monsters on his foot. The book had broken free from its restraining belt and snapped viciously at Ron’s ankle. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Hermione cried as Harry wrenched the book from Ron’s leg and retied it shut. “What are you doing with all those books anyway?” Ron asked, limping back to his bed. “Just trying to decide which ones to take with us,” said Hermione. “When we’re looking for the Horcruxes.” “Oh, of course,” said Ron, clapping a hand to his forehead. “I forgot we’ll be hunting down Voldemort in a mobile library.” “Ha ha,” said Hermione, looking down at Spellman’s Syllabary. “I wonder…will we need to translate runes? It’s possible…I think we’d better take it, to be safe.” She dropped the syllabary onto the larger of the two piles and picked up Hogwarts, A History. “Listen,” said Harry. He had sat up straight. Ron and Hermione looked at him with similar mixtures of resignation and defiance. “I know you said after Dumbledore’s funeral that you wanted to come with me,” Harry began. “Here he goes,” Ron said to Hermione, rolling his eyes. “As we knew he would,” she sighed, turning back to the books. “You know, I think I will take Hogwarts, A History. Even if we’re not going back there, I don’t think I’d feel right if I didn’t have it with--” “Listen!” said Harry again. “No, Harry, you listen,” said Hermione. “We’re coming with you. That was decided months ago--years, really.” “But--” “Shut up,” Ron advised him. “--are you sure you’ve thought this through?” Harry persisted. “Let’s see,” said Hermione, slamming Travels with Trolls onto the discarded pile with a rather fierce look. “I’ve been packing for days, so we’re ready to leave at a moment’s notice, which for your information has included doing some pretty difficult magic, not to mention smuggling Mad-Eye’s whole stock of Polyjuice Potion right under Ron’s mum’s nose.” “I’ve also modified my parents’ memories so that they’re convinced they’re really called Wendell and Monica Wilkins, and that their life’s ambition is to move to Australia, which they have now done. That’s to make it more difficult for Voldemort to track them down and interrogate them about me--or you, because unfortunately, I’ve told them quite a bit about you. “Assuming I survive our hunt for the Horcruxes, I’ll find Mum and Dad and lifted the enchantment. If I don’t--well, I think I’ve cast a good enough charm to keep them safe and happy. Wendell and Monica Wilkins don’t know that they’ve got a daughter, you see.” Hermione’s eyes were swimming with tears again. Ron got back off the bed, put his arm around her once more, and frowned at Harry as though reproaching him for lack of tact. Harry could not think of anything to say, not least because it was highly unusual for Ron to be teaching anyone else tact.

I am placing blame. I faced too much pressure to succeed and take advantage of the opportunities unavailable to previous generations of my family. I experienced the guilt and sexism of the Catholic Church. I was no good at math, no matter how hard I tried. Sometimes trying just wasn’t good enough. I stopped dancing, swimming, and playing instruments. I refused to go to Mass. I did not fit the image of my family. I was the wild child, the intense, sensitive daughter whom my parents tried to rein in. I was explosive, depressed, and skeptical. I was not the daughter they thought I was.

without flaw, trying to calculate his surroundings and predicament. Knowledge flooded his thoughts, facts and images, memories and details of the world and how it works. He pictured snow on trees, running down a leaf-strewn road, eating a hamburger, the moon casting a pale glow on a grassy meadow, swimming in a lake, a busy city square with hundreds of people bustling about their business. And yet he didn’t know where he came from, or how he’d gotten inside the dark lift, or who his parents were. He didn’t even know his last name. Images of people flashed across his mind, but there was no recognition, their faces replaced with haunted smears of color. He couldn’t think of one person he knew, or recall a single conversation. The room continued its ascent, swaying; Thomas grew immune to the ceaseless rattling of the chains that pulled him upward. A long time passed. Minutes stretched into hours, although it was impossible to know for sure because every second seemed an eternity. No. He was smarter than that. Trusting his instincts, he knew he’d been moving for roughly half an hour. Strangely enough, he felt his fear whisked away like a swarm of gnats caught in the wind, replaced by an intense

It was in the Cornish summer of his twelfth year that Peter began to notice just how different the worlds of children and grown-ups were. You could not exactly say that the parents never had fun. They went for swims - but never for longer than twenty minutes. They liked a game of volleyball, but only for half an hour or so. Occasionally they could be talked into hide-and-seek or lurky turkey or building a giant sand-castle, but those were special occasions. The fact was that all grown-ups, given half the chance, chose to sink into one of three activities on the beach: sitting around talking, reading newspapers and books, or snoozing. Their only exercise (if you could call it that) was long boring walks, and these were nothing more than excuses for more talking. On the beach, they often glanced at their watches and, long before anyone was hungry, began telling each other it was time to start thinking about lunch or supper. They invented errands for themselves - to the odd-job man who lived half a mile away, or to the garage in the village, or to the nearby town on shopping expeditions. They came back complaining about the holiday traffic, but of course they were the holiday traffic. These restless grown-ups made constant visits to the telephone box at the end of the lane to call their relatives, or their work, or their grown-up children. Peter noticed that most grown-ups could not begin their day happily until they had driven off to find a newspaper, the right newspaper. Others could not get through the day without cigarettes. Others had to have beer. Others could not get by without coffee. Some could not read a newspaper without smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee. Adults were always snapping their fingers and groaning because someone had returned from town and forgotten something; there was always one more thing needed, and promises were made to get it tomorrow - another folding chair, shampoo, garlic, sun-glasses, clothes pegs - as if the holiday could not be enjoyed, could not even begin, until all these useless items had been gathered up.

I have a very strong affinity for them. They’re my parents, I mean, and we’re all part of each other’s harmony and everything,” Teddy said. “I want them to have a nice time while they’re alive, because they like having a nice time… But they don’t love me and Booper – that’s my sister – that way. I mean they don't seem able to love us just the way we are. They don't seem able to love us unless they can keep changing us a little bit. They love their reasons for loving us almost as much as they love us, and most of the time more. It’s not so good, that way.” He turned toward Nicholson again, sitting slightly forward. “Do you have the time, please?” he asked. “I have a swimming lesson at ten-thirty.

There's a photograph I have of my mother in which her features are barely revealed. I recognize her from just her stance, some gesture in her limbs, even though it was taken before I was born. She is seventeen or eighteen, and snapped by her parents along the banks of their Suffolk river. She has been swimming, has climbed into her dress, and now stands on one foot, the other leg bent sideways in order to put on a shoe, her head tilted down so that her blond hair covers her face. I found it years later in the spare bedroom among the few remnants she had decided not to throw away. I have it with me still. This almost anonymous person, balanced awkwardly, holding on to her own safety. Already incognito.

Okay.First things first. Three things you don't want me to know about you." "What?" I gaped at him. "You're the one who says we don't know each other.So let's cut to the chase." Oh,but this was too easy: 1. I am wearing my oldest, ugliest underwear. 2.I think your girlfriend is evil and should be destroyed. 3.I am a lying, larcenous creature who talks to dead people and thinks she should be your girlfriend once the aforementioned one is out of the picture. I figured that was just about everything. "I don't think so-" "Doesn't have to be embarrassing or major," Alex interrupted me, "but it has to be something that costs a little to share." When I opened my mouth to object again, he pointed a long finger at the center of my chest. "You opened the box,Pandora.So sit." There was a funny-shaped velour chair near my knees. I sat. The chair promptly molded itself to my butt. I assumed that meant it was expensive, and not dangerous. Alex flopped onto the bed,settling on his side with his elbow bent and his head propped on his hand. "Can't you go first?" I asked. "You opened the box..." "Okay,okay. I'm thinking." He gave me about thirty seconds. Then, "Time." I took a breath. "I'm on full scholarship to Willing." One thing Truth or Dare has taught me is that you can't be too proud and still expect to get anything valuable out of the process. "Next." "I'm terrified of a lot things, including lightning, driving a stick shift, and swimming in the ocean." His expression didn't change at all. He just took in my answers. "Last one." "I am not telling you about my underwear," I muttered. He laughed. "I am sorry to hear that. Not even the color?" I wanted to scowl. I couldn't. "No.But I will tell you that I like anchovies on my pizza." "That's supposed to be consolation for withholding lingeries info?" "Not my concern.But you tell me-is it something you would broadcast around the lunchroom?" "Probably not," he agreed. "Didn't think so." I settled back more deeply into my chair. It didn't escape my notice that, yet again, I was feeling very relaxed around this boy. Yet again, it didn't make me especially happy. "Your turn." I thought about my promise to Frankie. I quietly hoped Alex would tell me something to make me like him even a little less. He was ready. "I cried so much during my first time at camp that my parents had to come get me four days early." I never went to camp. It always seemed a little bit idyllic to me. "How old were you?" "Six.Why?" "Why?" I imagined a very small Alex in a Spider-Man shirt, cuddling the threadbare bunny now sitting on the shelf over his computer. I sighed. "Oh,no reason. Next." "I hated Titanic, The Notebook, and Twilight." "What did you think of Ten Things I Hate About You?" "Hey," he snapped. "I didn't ask questions during your turn." "No,you didn't," I agreed pleasantly. "Anser,please." "Fine.I liked Ten Things. Satisfied?" No,actually. "Alex," I said sadly, "either you are mind-bogglingly clueless about what I wouldn't want to know, or your next revelation is going to be that you have an unpleasant reaction to kryptonite." He was looking at me like I'd spoken Swahili. "What are you talking about?" Just call me Lois. I shook my head. "Never mind. Carry on." "I have been known to dance in front of the mirror-" he cringed a little- "to 'Thriller.'" And there it was. Alex now knew that I was a penniless coward with a penchant for stinky fish.I knew he was officially adorable. He pushed himself up off his elbow and swung his legs around until he was sitting on the edge of the bed. "And on that humiliating note, I will now make you translate bathroom words into French." He picked up a sheaf of papers from the floor. "I have these worksheets. They're great for the irregular verbs...

Kids didn’t just disappear unless someone made them disappear.‘Relax, mate,’ the head of security said. ‘We’ve never lost one yet.’ Lots of kids wandered off at the Easter Show, he told them. They were always found, usually somewhere near the food.Doug had tried to relax, to stay calm, but he could feel the panic building inside him.The place was too big.There were too many people.Lockie could be anywhere. The police were called. It took hours for everyone to leave the showgrounds because every family was stopped. Every parent was questioned and every child identified. It was way past midnight when everyone had finally gone home, and still they had not found Lockie.The head of security changed his tone. The police held whispered conversations in groups. They began to look at him with sympathy in their eyes.Doug felt his heart slow down. There was a ringing in his ears. He was underwater and he couldn’t swim.Lockie was gone.They had lost one.Sammy had gone from impatience to hunger to exhaustion. She didn’t understand what was happening.Sarah sat next to the pram twisting her hands. She did not cry. She didn’t cry for days, but every time Doug went near her he could hear her muttering the word ‘please’. ‘Please, please, please, please.’ It drove Doug mad and he had to move away because he wanted to hit her, to snap her out of her trance. He had never lifted a hand to his wife or his children, but now he had to close his fist and dig his nails into his palm to keep himself from lashing out Sarah didn’t believe in hitting children; she believed in time out and consequences. It was different to the way Doug had been raised but he had come around to the idea. The thought of anyone—especially himself—hurting Sarah and the kids was almost too much to bear.Doug sometimes wondered, after, if whoever had taken his son had hit him. When he did think about someone hurting his boy he could feel his hands curl into fists. He would embrace the rush of heat that came with the anger because at least it was a different feeling to the sorrow and despair. Anger felt constructive. He wanted to kill everyone, even himself. But as fast as the anger came it would recede and he would be back at the place he hated to be. Mired in his own helplessness. There was fuck-all he could do.

grips with cables and put furniture together, change tires on the car and charge the phone and switch the coffee machine off and not forget to sign the kids up for swimming lessons. We open our eyes in the morning and life is just waiting to tip a fresh avalanche of “Don’t Forget!”s and “Remember!”s over us. We don’t have time to think or breathe, we just wake up and start digging through the heap, because there will be another one dumped on us tomorrow. We look around occasionally, at our place of work or at parents’ meetings or out in the street, and realize with horror that everyone else seems to know exactly what they’re doing. We’re the only ones who have to pretend. Everyone else can afford stuff and has a handle on other stuff and enough energy to deal with even more stuff. And everyone else’s children can swim.

When it comes to our current fears regarding unsupervised children, we see both versions of folk wisdom at work. In the sixties or seventies, a child could walk to school or wait in a car because people were better, the world less violent, we say. But also, parents were dumber. They simply didn’t know. Sure, parents used to leave kids on their own, but they also let them drink Kool-Aid by the vat and play with toy weapons the NRA might find a touch aggro. They let them build forts in the trunks of station wagons careening down the freeway or swim without sunscreen until their skin blistered. Parents let kids wait in cars because they were idiots. But also, on average, because it was safer, because people were better then, gentler, less monstrous. It sounds so nice and pleasant, this safer, simpler past. It sounds almost too good to be true.

there is nothing generic about a human life. When I was little, to get to my bus stop, I had to cross a field that had so much snow my parents fitted me with ski pants and knee-high thermal boots that were toasty to forty degrees below zero. I am excellent in the stern of a canoe, but I never got the hang of riding a bike with no hands. I have seen the northern lights because my parents always woke up the whole house when the night sky was painted with color. I love the smell of clover and chamomile because my sister and I used to pick both on the way home from swimming lessons. I spent weeks of my childhood riding around on my bike saving drowning worms after a heavy rain. My hair is my favorite feature even though it’s too heavy for most ponytails, and I still can’t parallel park. There is no life in general. Each day has been a collection of trivial details—little intimacies and jokes and screw-ups and realizations.

he same goes for new situations. Imagine a child who’s more afraid of the ocean than are other kids the same age. Thoughtful parents recognize that this fear is natural and even wise; the ocean is indeed dangerous. But they don’t allow her to spend the summer on the safety of the dunes, and neither do they drop her in the water and expect her to swim. Instead they signal that they understand her unease, while urging her to take small steps. Maybe they play in the sand for a few days with the ocean waves crashing at a safe distance. Then one day they approach the water’s edge, perhaps with the child riding on a parent’s shoulders. They wait for calm weather, or low tide, to immerse a toe, then a foot, then a knee. They don’t rush; every small step is a giant stride in a child’s world. When ultimately she learns to swim like a fish, she has reached a crucial turning point in her relationship not only with water but also with fear

The same goes for new situations. Imagine a child who’s more afraid of the ocean than are other kids the same age. Thoughtful parents recognize that this fear is natural and even wise; the ocean is indeed dangerous. But they don’t allow her to spend the summer on the safety of the dunes, and neither do they drop her in the water and expect her to swim. Instead they signal that they understand her unease, while urging her to take small steps. Maybe they play in the sand for a few days with the ocean waves crashing at a safe distance. Then one day they approach the water’s edge, perhaps with the child riding on a parent’s shoulders. They wait for calm weather, or low tide, to immerse a toe, then a foot, then a knee. They don’t rush; every small step is a giant stride in a child’s world. When ultimately she learns to swim like a fish, she has reached a crucial turning point in her relationship not only with water but also with fear.

She speaks reverently of her summers here. This is her favorite place in the world, she tells him, and he understands that this landscape, the water of this particular lake in which she first learned to swim, is an essential part of her, even more so than the house in Chelsea. This was where she lost her virginity, she confesses, when she was fourteen years old, in a boathouse, with a boy whose family once summered here. He thinks of himself at fourteen, his life nothing like it is now... He realizes that this is a place that will always be here for her. It makes it easy to imagine her past, and her future, to picture her growing old. He sees her with streaks of gray in her hair, her face still beautiful, her long body slightly widened and slack, sitting on a beach chair with a floppy hat on her head. He sees her returning here, grieving, to bury her parents, teaching her children to swim in the lake, leading them with two hands into the water, showing them how to dive cleanly off the dock.

In the end, even the other boys ddn't want it to be over - for two weeks they smoked, flirted, and drank, away from the eyes of their parents. And they learned how to do things. That country, with its chronic breakdowns and shortages, made resourceful improvisers out of the clumsiest hands. A quarter of a century later, at family gatherings in San Francisco and Omaha and Chicago and New Jersey and Brooklyn, we children had to marvel at the hands of our fathers: small, rough with work - sometimes cracked with it - the thumbs squat and broad. Whether molecular biologists, programmers, or taxi drivers, they could dismantle radios, singe potatoes in firepits, swim to the other side of the lake - oh, how these tense men untensed at the sight of a rural body of water - get a chandelier to hang from the ceiling, and strum a guitar. They still worse the mustaches and trimmed beards of their youth, and they were beyond the reach of American fashion. To us, their Americanized children, these men were rigid, frightened, and withdrawn. But you had to love their hands.

Because the terrible thing about becoming an adult is being forced to realize that absolutely nobody cares about us, we have to deal with everything ourselves now, find out how the whole world works. Work and pay bills, use dental floss and get to meetings on time, stand in line and fill out forms, come to grips with cables and put furniture together, change tires on the car and charge the phone and switch the coffee machine off and not forget to sign the kids up for swimming lessons. We open our eyes in the morning and life is just waiting to tip a fresh avalanche of "Don't Forget!"s and "Remember!"s over us. We don't have time to think or breathe, we just wake up and start digging through the heap, because there will be another one dumped on us tomorrow. We look around occasionally, at our place of work or at parents' meetings or out in the street, and realize with horror that everyone else seems to know exactly what they're doing. We're the only ones who have to pretend. Everyone else can afford stuff and has a handle on other stuff and enough energy to deal with even more stuff. And everyone else's children can swim.

(from Lady of the Lake) The western waves of ebbing day Rolled o’er the glen their level way; Each purple peak, each flinty spire, Was bathed in floods of living fire. But not a setting beam could glow Within the dark ravines below, Where twined the path in shadow hid, Round many a rocky pyramid, Shooting abruptly from the dell Its thunder-splintered pinnacle; Round many an insulated mass, The native bulwarks of the pass, Huge as the tower which builders vain Presumptuous piled on Shinar’s plain. The rocky summits, split and rent, Formed turret, dome, or battlement, Or seemed fantastically set With cupola or minaret, Wild crests as pagod ever decked, Or mosque of Eastern architect. Nor were these earth-born castles bare, Nor lacked they many a banner fair; For, from their shivered brows displayed, Far o’er the unfathomable glade, All twinkling with the dewdrop sheen, The brier-rose fell in streamers green, And creeping shrubs, of thousand dyes, Waved in the west-wind’s summer sighs. Boon nature scattered, free and wild, Each plant or flower, the mountain’s child. Here eglantine embalmed the air, Hawthorn and hazel mingled there; The primrose pale, and violet flower, Found in each cliff a narrow bower; Fox-glove and night-shade, side by side, Emblems of punishment and pride, Grouped their dark hues with every stain The weather-beaten crags retain. With boughs that quaked at every breath, Gray birch and aspen wept beneath; Aloft, the ash and warrior oak Cast anchor in the rifted rock; And, higher yet, the pine-tree hung His shattered trunk, and frequent flung, Where seemed the cliffs to meet on high, His boughs athwart the narrowed sky. Highest of all, where white peaks glanced, Where glist’ning streamers waved and danced, The wanderer’s eye could barely view The summer heaven’s delicious blue; So wondrous wild, the whole might seem The scenery of a fairy dream. Onward, amid the copse ’gan peep A narrow inlet, still and deep, Affording scarce such breadth of brim As served the wild duck’s brood to swim. Lost for a space, through thickets veering, But broader when again appearing, Tall rocks and tufted knolls their face Could on the dark-blue mirror trace; And farther as the hunter strayed, Still broader sweep its channels made. The shaggy mounds no longer stood, Emerging from entangled wood, But, wave-encircled, seemed to float, Like castle girdled with its moat; Yet broader floods extending still Divide them from their parent hill, Till each, retiring, claims to be An islet in an inland sea. And now, to issue from the glen, No pathway meets the wanderer’s ken, Unless he climb, with footing nice A far projecting precipice. The broom’s tough roots his ladder made, The hazel saplings lent their aid; And thus an airy point he won, Where, gleaming with the setting sun, One burnished sheet of living gold, Loch Katrine lay beneath him rolled, In all her length far winding lay, With promontory, creek, and bay, And islands that, empurpled bright, Floated amid the livelier light, And mountains, that like giants stand, To sentinel enchanted land. High on the south, huge Benvenue Down to the lake in masses threw Crags, knolls, and mountains, confusedly hurled, The fragments of an earlier world; A wildering forest feathered o’er His ruined sides and summit hoar, While on the north, through middle air, Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare.

Agreeable even though the rector, when he arrived some years earlier, had looked around, seen a fair number of Bajians and Barbadians, who were Church of England—many of them domestics working for East Orange’s white rich, many of them island people who knew their place and sat at the back and thought they were accepted—leaned on his pulpit, and, before beginning the sermon on his first Sunday, said, “I see we have some colored families here. We’ll have to do something about that.” After consulting with the seminary in New York, he had seen to it that various services and Sunday schools for the colored were conducted, outside basic church law, in the colored families’ houses. Later, the swimming pool at the high school was shut down by the school superintendent so that the white kids wouldn’t have to swim with the colored kids. A big swimming pool, used for swimming classes and a swimming team, a part of the physical education program for years, but since there were objections from some of the white kids’ parents who were employers of the black kids’ parents—the ones working as maids and housemen and chauffeurs and gardeners and yardmen—the pool was drained and covered over.

the terrible thing about becoming an adult is being forced to realize that absolutely nobody cares about us, we have to deal with everything ourselves now, find out how the whole world works. Work and pay bills, use dental floss and get to meetings on time, stand in line and fill out forms, come to grips with cables and put furniture together, change tires on the car and charge the phone and switch the coffee machine off and not forget to sign the kids up for swimming lessons. We open our eyes in the morning and life is just waiting to tip a fresh avalanche of “Don’t Forget!”s and “Remember!”s over us. We don’t have time to think or breathe, we just wake up and start digging through the heap, because there will be another one dumped on us tomorrow. We look around occasionally, at our place of work or at parents’ meetings or out in the street, and realize with horror that everyone else seems to know exactly what they’re doing. We’re the only ones who have to pretend. Everyone else can afford stuff and has a handle on other stuff and enough energy to deal with even more stuff. And everyone else’s children can swim. But we weren’t ready to become adults. Someone should have stopped us.

Because the terrible thing about becoming an adult is being forced to realize that absolutely nobody cares about us, we have to deal with everything ourselves now, find out how the whole world works. Work and pay bills, use dental floss and get to meetings on time, stand in line and fill out forms, come to grips with cables and put furniture together, change tires on the car and charge the phone and switch the coffee machine off and not forget to sign the kids up for swimming lessons. We open our eyes in the morning and life is just waiting to tip a fresh avalanche of “Don’t Forget!”s and “Remember!”s over us. We don’t have time to think or breathe, we just wake up and start digging through the heap, because there will be another one dumped on us tomorrow. We look around occasionally, at our place of work or at parents’ meetings or out in the street, and realize with horror that everyone else seems to know exactly what they’re doing. We’re the only ones who have to pretend. Everyone else can afford stuff and has a handle on other stuff and enough energy to deal with even more stuff. And everyone else’s children can swim. But we weren’t ready to become adults. Someone should have stopped us.

There is a window over my tub and when I was younger, I'd lie down in the tub instead of my bed. My mother would wake me and make me move back to my bed but finally she gave up and let me sleep there. I liked it in the tub because from the window I could see stars and the ocean and sometimes, if it was calm, I could see the stars in the ocean. I liked the tub because if I slept with my ear against the drainpipe I could hear my parents' conversations all night long, metallic talking that made its way up through the plumbing. Through the pipe, one night just before my father disappeared, I heard him tell my mother, 'I remember how the moon shines into the ocean and the pattern it makes on the sea floor.' She didn't say anything. 'I want to go back there,' he said, and the reason I remember that conversation is because my mother started crying when he said that and I had never heard her cry before. He meant we were from the ocean. 'You're a mermaid,' he told me at the breakfast table. 'Don't forget it.' A corner of toast scraped the roof of my mouth when he said it. The cut it made helped me to remember. So I don't think he's dead. I think he is in the sea swimming and that is kinder than imagining his boots filling up with water, and then his lungs.

Brains with insufficient life experience have not had the chance to model the world into a few heuristics, and must instead try to reason their way to the right result, not unlike how psychopaths, who lack any moral intuitions, must reason their way through moral dilemmas. When teenagers are placed in a scanner and asked things such as whether it is a good idea to swim with sharks, they show substantially more frontal activation than adults, most of whom have learned over many years that swimming with sharks belongs in the “don't do” category without having to think much at all about it. That is, teenagers can reason, but their worldview is still too constricted to allow that reason to reliably result in rational outcomes.48 Of course, brains develop at rates that differ across individuals, just as some seventeen year olds have had more brain-tuning experiences than others. As a result, as all parents know, some teenagers are more responsible than others. Likewise, some adults are less responsible than others. Until neuroscience can tell us which brains are sufficiently responsible on an individual level, and indeed what “sufficiently responsible” is, the law must continue to do what humans have always done – make gross classifications based on categories rather than on individuals.

The Mother’s Prayer for Its Daughter First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither the Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches. May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty. When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer. Guide her, protect her When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age. Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit. May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers. Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For Childhood is short—a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day— And Adulthood is long and Dry-Humping in Cars will wait. O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed. And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it. And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, That I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes. Amen

The truth? The truth is that the bank robber was an adult. There’s nothing more revealing about a bank robber’s personality than that. Because the terrible thing about becoming an adult is being forced to realize that absolutely nobody cares about us, we have to deal with everything ourselves now, find out how the whole world works. Work and pay bills, use dental floss and get to meetings on time, stand in line and fill out forms, come to grips with cables and put furniture together, change tires on the car and charge the phone and switch the coffee machine off and not forget to sign the kids up for swimming lessons. We open our eyes in the morning and life is just waiting to tip a fresh avalanche of “Don’t Forget!”s and “Remember!”s over us. We don’t have time to think or breathe, we just wake up and start digging through the heap, because there will be another one dumped on us tomorrow. We look around occasionally, at our place of work or at parents’ meetings or out in the street, and realize with horror that everyone else seems to know exactly what they’re doing. We’re the only ones who have to pretend. Everyone else can afford stuff and has a handle on other stuff and enough energy to deal with even more stuff. And everyone else’s children can swim. But we weren’t ready to become adults. Someone should have stopped us.

The truth? The truth is that the bank robber was an adult. There’s nothing more revealing about a bank robber’s personality than that. Because the terrible thing about becoming an adult is being forced to realize that absolutely nobody cares about us, we have to deal with everything ourselves now, find out how the whole world works. Work and pay bills, use dental floss and get to meetings on time, stand in line and fill out forms, come to grips with cables and put furniture together, change tyres on the car and charge the phone and switch the coffee machine off and not forget to sign the kids up for swimming lessons. We open our eyes in the morning and life is just waiting to tip a fresh avalanche of ‘Don’t Forget!’s and ‘Remember!’s over us. We don’t have time to think or breathe, we just wake up and start digging through the heap, because there will be another one dumped on us tomorrow. We look around occasionally, at our place of work or at parents’ meetings or out in the street, and realize with horror that everyone else seems to know exactly what they’re doing. We’re the only ones who have to pretend. Everyone else can afford stuff and has a handle on other stuff and enough energy to deal with even more stuff. And everyone else’s children can swim. But we weren’t ready to become adults. Someone should have stopped us.

Hanging around them made Charlie feel like maybe there wasn’t anything wrong with her. It didn’t matter if she didn’t fit in at school, or that her body kept changing on her. It was okay when her best friend’s parents took one look at Charlie and clocked her for trouble. When even Laura herself, who’d known her since she was eight, started acting weird. It was fine that she’d given up hoping her mother would notice there was something strange about Rand taking her on trips all the time. All those people who judged her or couldn’t be bothered with her were marks. She’d have the last laugh. “You gotta be like a shark in this business,” Benny told her with his soft voice and slicked-back hair. “Sniff around for blood in the water. Greet life teeth first. And no matter what, never stop swimming.” Charlie took that advice and the money from her last job with Rand and got a tattoo. She’d wanted one, and she’d also wanting to know if she could con a shop into giving her ink, even though she was three years away from eighteen. It involved some fast talking and swiping a notary sigil, but she got it done. Her first tattoo. It was still a little bit sore when she moved. Along her inner arm was the word “fearless” in looping cursive letters, except the tattooist had spaced them oddly so that it looked as though it said “fear less.” It reminded her of what she wanted to be, and that her body belonged to her. She could write all over it if she wanted.

You might expect that if you spent such an extended period in twelve different households, what you would gather is twelve different ideas about how to raise children: there would be the strict parents and the lax parents and the hyperinvolved parents and the mellow parents and on and on. What Lareau found, however, is something much different. There were only two parenting “philosophies,” and they divided almost perfectly along class lines. The wealthier parents raised their kids one way, and the poorer parents raised their kids another way. The wealthier parents were heavily involved in their children’s free time, shuttling them from one activity to the next, quizzing them about their teachers and coaches and teammates. One of the well-off children Lareau followed played on a baseball team, two soccer teams, a swim team, and a basketball team in the summer, as well as playing in an orchestra and taking piano lessons. That kind of intensive scheduling was almost entirely absent from the lives of the poor children. Play for them wasn’t soccer practice twice a week. It was making up games outside with their siblings and other kids in the neighborhood. What a child did was considered by his or her parents as something separate from the adult world and not particularly consequential. One girl from a working-class family—Katie Brindle—sang in a choir after school. But she signed up for it herself and walked to choir practice on her own. Lareau writes: What Mrs. Brindle doesn’t do that is routine for middle-class mothers is view her daughter’s interest in singing as a signal to look for other ways to help her develop that interest into a formal talent. Similarly Mrs. Brindle does not discuss Katie’s interest in drama or express regret that she cannot afford to cultivate her daughter’s talent. Instead she frames Katie’s skills and interests as character traits—singing and acting are part of what makes Katie “Katie.” She sees the shows her daughter puts on as “cute” and as a way for Katie to “get attention.

One day in May 1930, Celia took her twoyear- old son for a swim at the yacht club, but it was already the onset of the Argentine winter, cold and windy. That night, the little boy had a coughing fit. A doctor diagnosed him as suffering from asthmatic bronchitis and prescribed the normal remedies, but the attack lasted for several days. Ernestito had developed chronic asthma, which would afflict him for the rest of his life and irrevocably change the course of his parents’ lives.

The boy whose father takes him swimming, the girl whose mother takes her to the theater, children whose parents do things with them - these are not skateboarders.

Christine was an attorney with a very domineering father, Joseph, who constantly pushed her to be a success. Early in our work together, she described her childhood like this: “My father controlled me. He couldn’t stand anyone having a different opinion; it was absolutely intolerable to him. I was so afraid of making the wrong choice that I made a lot of decisions based on fear. It was as if my father completely owned me. Even in college I had to be home by eleven, which was extremely embarrassing, but I wouldn’t have dreamed of challenging him.” Joseph even tried to control Christine’s thoughts. If Christine came up with an idea her father didn’t like, his response was immediate: “Don’t even think about it!” Joseph also had lack of empathy that made him a terrible teacher. He couldn’t sense what might be terrifying to a child, so he tried to teach Christine to swim by literally dropping her in a pool. As Christine put it, “He would command me to do well but didn’t offer any guidance or help. I was simply ordered to be a success.” To all outward appearances, Christine did become a success, but on the inside she felt a tremendous insecurity, like she didn’t really know what she was doing.

just one generation ago, kids were potty trained at seventeen to twenty-two months. I truly believe it’s because our moms, for the most part, were stay-at-home moms. I mean stay at home. They didn’t work at home, they had no computer for email and Facebook, no cell phones, no identities to preserve, no mommy groups, no playdates, no baby gymnastics, no music classes, and no swimming lessons. Now, I’m forty-three, so maybe I’m talking to a younger audience here, and I’m certainly not saying our moms exhibited the best parenting. But I do believe it was that stay-at-home factor that made potty training so easy.

As parents, we’re on grief overload. We yearn for our deceased child, and we hurt for our other kids too. Our hearts are doubly crushed. Parenting right now can feel about as doable as swimming unassisted across an ocean. Even with other kids in the mix, our focus should still be to grieve responsibly and in a healthy manner. We love our other kids by first taking good care of ourselves. If we don’t process our own grief, it will leak out in ways which will not benefit our families.

A parent must do two things: teach the child a way to earn a living, and to swim.

The family has always been a very important part of Italian life. In country areas, it is still common for grandparents, parents, and children to live in the same house. Even when young couples find a home of their own, they like to visit their parents regularly. In recent years, the traditional closeness of the family has become less important for some Italians, especially in the big cities. Each year thousands of young people from the southern regions leave their families and move north, to find work in the industrial areas. A typical Italian family in a town lives in an apartment, probably with a kitchen, dining room, living room, bathroom, and two or three bedrooms. Children come home from school around noon. Many workers also come home for a two-hour break, joining the family for a large midday meal, and perhaps taking a nap afterward, before returning to work. For children, the afternoon is usually occupied with homework, after which there is time for play or activities such as swimming or judo. The evening meal is usually small and taken while watching television, reading, or enjoying conversation.

Beginning thein Book 1 0. 1. In thee beginning, creation Godded the Heavens ere thee. 2. And thou wert without form and void, knowing neither darkness nor light, having no I by which to divine them. And the spilling of your Father moved amidst the waters that came to make you come. 3. And Dad said, Let there be my firmament in the midst of Her waters, and let it divide Her waters as a sword should its sheath. And 20,000 legions of sireofhim were thrust unto the breach by the bidding of their master. 4. And in the Heavens of their heads, in the limbic marchlands of their intimacy, angels roared and dragons sang, and hippogriffs commissurated across fields of blood-filled furrows. 5. ”.are parents our Myths“ 6. Not knowing that they do sow, they sing thee into being. 7. Blind light blazes - a lamp in an empty grave - an O-void shrine. Its name until you came was No, or Un, and there was naught else: no person, place, or thing. And yet - it was as though a thousand million tiny fingers beaconed you out of the dark. 8. Brightnest of paraspectral radiance, unrememeasurable, ununderstandable, that a snake-shaped You came swimming to. So many of you came, writhing, flagellating, so that this shrine became like a shining sun, and one - only one - was chosen to enter the Codesh of Codes. It brought creative agony, the pain of Somethingness, the sudden searing mystortury of Being, since when we have called it Limited. 9. But how could you not have helped but see the tiny hidden singing Unlimited Light, your Own Sopht Aura? Sire of sirens and sunrise and serapheim? 10. This is what you aur - a sarcophagus of secreted light! 11. Thistory is You.

He should have known it would come to this. He should have known the day that hak gwai wife of his ran away from home. Should have known the day he saw his daughter swimming in the bay as a storm bore down on her. Should have known when his parents dragged him to this island and changed their names. He stood at the water’s edge, now, watching the waves crash white against the rocks, waiting for his daughter’s body to wash ashore.

[on Kai Cheng Thom's Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars] The narrator—who is never named—leaves home in her late teens, running from a city called Gloom where she has lived with her parents, both Chinese migrants, and a beloved younger sister named Charity, toward the city of Smoke and Lights, a place where "the streets are crooked, and the light is heavy, and the air is stained ash grey from the glamorous cigarette lips of hungry ghosts swimming through the fog"; a place where "anything can happen if you dream it," where "you can be anything you want." She has moved to the City of Smoke and Lights to transition, to "become nobody" in order to "become someone else.

If you find yourself lost in a sea of regrets Swim for tomorrow or you’ll drown in yesterday.

Why do siblings argue so much? Well, let’s start with a brilliant analogy from Elaine Mazlish and Adele Faber, authors of one of my favorite parenting books, Siblings Without Rivalry. They remind us that when a child gets a sibling, it feels to them similar to how it would feel for you if your partner got a second spouse. Imagine your partner comes home and says, “Amazing news! We’re getting a second wife! You’re going to be a big wife and now we’ll have a little wife and we’re going to be one big happy family!” If you’re like me, you’d look around the room thinking, “WHAT? Am I in an alternative universe? Why is this good for me?” All of your relatives and neighbors ask you if you’re so excited about this new wife, then nine months later everyone showers her with gifts and hugs, and forever after, you’re expected to love this woman and get along swimmingly. Imagine one day you take one of her items—something that used to be yours—out of her hand and everyone yells at YOU about it, saying, “You can’t do things like this! You can’t take a toy from a little wife! Look how small and helpless and innocent she is!” By this point, I think we’d be beyond confused . . . we’d be filled with the rage that comes from feeling unseen. This. Is. Siblinghood.

Ahhh…17. The age when love is the most important thing in the world. Well, at least having a boyfriend is, since all the other girls I saw seemed to float dreamy-eyed while being glued to a boy. Naturally, I fell in love for the first time in my life. Better still (in the other girls’ eyes), he was an older man—six years older than me. He was so gorgeous, with his athletic build, dark, touchable hair, ocean blue eyes that invited me to swim in them…sigh…. Then there was that dimpled smile that made me melt. And could he ever kiss! (p. 22)

He guarded him . . . like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions. The Lord alone led him; no foreign god was with him. (Deuteronomy 32:10–12) Our almighty God is like a parent who delights in leading the tender children in His care to the very edge of a precipice and then shoving them off the cliff into nothing but air. He does this so they may learn that they already possess an as-yet-unrealized power of flight that can forever add to the pleasure and comfort of their lives. Yet if, in their attempt to fly, they are exposed to some extraordinary peril, He is prepared to swoop beneath them and carry them skyward on His mighty wings. When God brings any of His children into a position of unparalleled difficulty, they may always count on Him to deliver them. from The Song of Victory When God places a burden upon you, He places His arms underneath you. There once was a little plant that was small and whose growth was stunted, for it lived under the shade of a giant oak tree. The little plant valued the shade that covered it and highly regarded the quiet rest that its noble friend provided. Yet there was a greater blessing prepared for this little plant. One day a woodsman entered the forest with a sharp ax and felled the giant oak. The little plant began to weep, crying out, “My shelter has been taken away. Now every fierce wind will blow on me, and every storm will seek to uproot me!” The guardian angel of the little plant responded, “No! Now the sun will shine and showers will fall on you more abundantly than ever before. Now your stunted form will spring up into loveliness, and your flowers, which could never have grown to full perfection in the shade, will laugh in the sunshine. And people in amazement will say, ‘Look how that plant has grown! How gloriously beautiful it has become by removing that which was its shade and its delight!’ ” Dear believer, do you understand that God may take away your comforts and privileges in order to make you a stronger Christian? Do you see why the Lord always trains His soldiers not by allowing them to lie on beds of ease but by calling them to difficult marches and service? He makes them wade through streams, swim across rivers, climb steep mountains, and walk many long marches carrying heavy backpacks of sorrow. This is how He develops soldiers—not by dressing them up in fine uniforms to strut at the gates of the barracks or to appear as handsome gentlemen to those who are strolling through the park. No, God knows that soldiers can only be made in battle and are not developed in times of peace. We may be able to grow the raw materials of which soldiers are made, but turning them into true warriors requires the education brought about by the smell of gunpowder and by fighting in the midst of flying bullets and exploding bombs, not by living through pleasant and peaceful times. So, dear Christian, could this account for your situation? Is the Lord uncovering your gifts and causing them to grow? Is He developing in you the qualities of a soldier by shoving you into the heat of the battle? Should you not then use every gift and weapon He has given you to become a conqueror? Charles H. Spurgeon

Rahab could swim the waters above and below the firmament. It was all her territory. But her special domain was the Abyss. From there, she could access every body of water that ultimately connected to this underwater abode. Her birth waters were Lake Urimiya, where Elohim created her and held her at bay when he established the heavens and the earth. She was in the Lake again at that moment. She had returned to this sacred ground to give birth to her own spawn. The Nephilim paddled on the surface of the water. They were unaware of the nemesis below, a protective mother sea dragon and her very hungry newborn offspring, Leviathan. Leviathan was every bit the armored sea serpent as its parent. Even so young, it was already about half the size of Rahab. But it had something its progenitor did not: seven heads. Seven dragon heads on seven snakelike necks with seven times the predator’s snapping jaws, and seven times the rows of razor teeth. Leviathan’s strike zone was wide and it was more agile and speedier than Rahab. And it had seven times the fury. The Nephilim were oblivious to the shadowy forms approaching them from the darkness below. They filled the waters with their crafts The lead skiffs were only two thirds of the way across. The first casualties came at the front of the line. A huge explosion of water erupted. Pontoons snapped in two, throwing Nephilim into the water. Yahipan screamed, “RAHAB!!” The Nephilim stopped rowing and looked about the water. The huge serpentine armor broke the surface again, crushing a slew of the flatboats and dragging Nephilim into the depths. The spiny back cut through the water and disappeared. The Rephaim yelled orders. The Nephilim rowed for their lives. But it was an easy feast for the monsters of the deep. Rahab simply opened her mouth and scooped up dozens of Nephilim like so many minnows. Leviathan came next, with the seven dragon heads snapping up Nephilim faster than they could get out of the way. Leviathan might be a newborn and smaller than its mother, but already armor covered it. It was even able to launch small pillars of fire from its nostrils. Its youth and speed made up for its size as it darted and dodged around, all of its heads coordinated in a bloodbath of feeding. Inanna wondered where all that food went. Some Nephilim tried to fight back But it was futile and the smart ones made for the shoreline. They hoped they might get lucky and be overlooked by their serpentine predators. That was only the beginning. The sorry paddlers were no match for the worst of all Elohim’s creatures. Another creature came up from the depths. Its body could not be seen, only tentacles bursting from the water and crushing demigods in its grip. Yahipan and Thamaq were in the middle of the mayhem and counted eight of these snakelike appendages grabbing hapless soldiers.

On June 15, 1904, an annual gala was held on the passenger ship as it steamed up the East River, with about 1,400 people from St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church. Consisting mostly of German immigrants, the boat was packed with women and children, and when a small fire started on the ship shortly after the trip began, faulty equipment was unable to put it out or stop it from spreading. On top of that, the lifeboats were tied up and the crew, which never conducted emergency drills, was unprepared for a potential disaster. When parents put life preservers on their children and then had them enter the water, they soon learned that the life preservers were also faulty and didn’t float. As the disaster unfolded, over 1,000 passengers burned to death or drowned, many swept under the water by the East River’s current and weighed down by heavy wool clothing. Few people on board knew how to swim, exacerbating the situation, and eventually the overcrowded decks began to collapse, crushing some unfortunate victims. In the end, the General Slocum sank in shallow water while hundreds of corpses drifted ashore, and the fallout was immediate. The captain was indicted for criminal negligence and manslaughter, and the ship’s owner was also charged. While the captain would receive a 10 year sentence, the company in charge of the General Slocum got off with a light fine. In a somewhat fitting postscript, the ship was salvaged and converted into a barge, only to sink once again during a heavy storm in 1911.

Wait a minute—” “Just hold up.” He demanded. “I honestly believe there’s another world or another dimension within our world and wonder about my parents trapped in such a place, somewhere like an island. Well, every time I tried to reach them, I wasn’t on a boat, or a raft of any sort, and I certainly wasn’t swimming. Believe it or not, I was standing on water. Three times…three times, I saw them. The last time something told me to look down, and when I did, I saw the water below me moving like a treadmill. And you know, in a strange way it explained why I could never get to them.

Particular gift is the ability to ask such questions. For instance: If drug dealers make so much money, why do they still live with their mothers? Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What really caused crime rates to plunge during the past decade? Do real-estate agents have their clients’ best interests at heart? Why do black parents give their children names that may hurt their career prospects? Do schoolteachers cheat to meet high-stakes testing.

Kahnawake August 1704 Temperature 75 degrees “It’s me! Mercy Carter! Oh, Mr. Williams! Do you have news?” She flung herself on top of him. Oh, his beautiful beard! The beard of a real father, not a pretend Indian father or a French church father. “My brothers,” she begged. “John and Sam and Benny. Have you seen them? Have you heard anything about them? Do you know what happened to the little ones? Daniel? Have you found Daniel?” Mercy had forgotten that she had taken off her tunic to go swimming. That Joseph did not even have on his breechclout. That Mercy wore earrings and Joseph had been tattooed on his upper arms. That they stank of bear. Mr. Williams did not recognize Joseph, and Mercy he knew only by the color of her hair. He was stupefied by the two naked slimy children trying to hug him. In ore horror than even Ruth would have mustered, he whispered, “Your parents would be weeping. What have the savages done to you? You are animals.” Despair and shock mottled Mr. Williams’s face. Mercy stumbled back from him. Her bear grease stained his clothing. “Mercy,” he said, turning away from her, “go cover yourself.” Shame covered her first. Red patches flamed on her cheeks. She ran back to the swimmers, fighting sobs. She was aware of her bare feet, hard as leather from no shoes. Savage feet. Dear Lord in Heaven, thought Mercy, Ruth is right. I have committed terrible sins. My parents would be weeping. She did not look at Snow Walker but yanked on the deerskin tunic. She had tanned the hide herself, and she and Nistenha had painted the rows of turtles around the neckline and Nistenha had tied tiny tinkling French bells into the fringe. But it was still just animal skin. To be wearing hides in front of Mr. Williams was not much better than being naked. Snow Walker burst out of the water. “The white man? Was he cruel? I will call Tannhahorens.” No! Tannhahorens would not let her speak to Mr. Williams. She would never find out about her brothers; never redeem herself in the minister’s eyes. Mercy calmed down with the discipline of living among Indians. Running had shown weakness. “Thank you, Snow Walker,” she said, striving to be gracious, “but he merely wanted me to be clothed like an English girl. There is no need to call Tannhahorens.” She walked back. On the jetty, Joseph stood with his eyes fixed on the river instead of on his minister. He had not fled like Mercy to cover himself. He was standing his ground. “They aren’t savages, Mr. Williams. And they aren’t just Indians. Those children over there are Abenaki, the boy fishing by the rocks is Pennacook, and my own family is Kahnawake Mohawk.” Tears sprang into Mr. Williams’s eyes. “What do you mean--your family?” he said. “Joseph, you do not have a family in this terrible place. You have a master. Do not confuse savages who happen to give you food with family.” Joseph’s face hardened. “They are my family. My father is Great Sky. My mother--” The minister lost his temper. “Your father is Martin Kellogg,” he shouted, “with whom I just dined in Montreal. You refer to some savage as your father? I am ashamed of you.” Under his tan, Joseph paled and his Indian calm left him. He was trembling. “My--my father? Alive? You saw him?” “Your father is a field hand for a French family in Montreal. He works hard, Joseph. He has no choice. But you have choices. Have you chosen to abandon your father?” Joseph swallowed and wet his lips. “No.” He could barely get the syllable out. Don’t cry, prayed Mercy. Be an eagle. She fixed her eyes upon him, giving him all her strength, but Mr. Williams continued to destroy whatever strength the thirteen-year-old possessed. “Your father prays for the day you and he will be ransomed, Joseph. All he thinks of is the moment he can gather his beloved family back under his own roof. Is that not also your prayer, Joseph?

Thinking of your parents having sex is like imagining yourself wading in a swimming pool full of squid parts.  It’s like when you keep your eyes open in the gory scenes of a horror movie. 

and though he admitted it to no one, especially not his parents when they called from Delhi every weekend, he was crippled with homesickness, missing his parents to the point where tears often filled his eyes, in those first months, without warning. He sought traces of his parents' faces and voices among the people who surrounded and cared for him, but there was absolutely nothing, no one, at Langford to remind him of them. After that first semester he had slipped as best as he could into this world, swimming competitively, calling boys by their last names, always wearing khakis because jeans were not allowed. He learned to live without his mother and father, as everyone else did, shedding his daily dependence on them even though he was still a boy, and even to enjoy it. Still, he refused to forgive them.

she’d grown up but she couldn’t spot her parents’ home among the jumble of roofs. On the gentle rise across the river the homes were statelier; here and there swimming pools flashed

It All Starts at Home The quality of the time that their parents devote to them indicates to children the degree to which they are valued by their parents…. When children know that they are valued, and when they truly feel valued in the deepest parts of themselves, then they feel valuable. —M. SCOTT PECK     It was a source of much aggravation to some fish to see a number of lobsters swimming backward instead of forward. So they called a meeting, and it was decided to start a class for the lobsters’ instruction. This was done, and a number of young lobsters came. (The fish had reasoned that if they started with the young lobsters, as they grew up, they would learn to swim properly.) At first they did very well, but afterward, when they returned home and saw their fathers and mothers swimming in the old way, they soon forgot their lessons. So it is with many children who are well-taught at school but drift backward because of a bad home influence. Psalm 127:1-128:4 gives us some principles for building a family in which children are confident that their parents love them. First, the psalmist addresses the foundation and protection of the home: “Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain” (127:1). The protective wall surrounding a city was the very first thing to be constructed when a new city was built. The people of the Old Testament knew they needed protection from their enemies, but they were also smart enough to know that walls could be climbed over, knocked down, or broken apart. They realized that their ultimate security was the Lord standing guard over the city. Are you looking for God to help you build your home? Are you trusting the Lord to be the guard over your family? Many forces in today’s society threaten the family. In Southern California we see parents who are burning the candle at both ends to provide all the material things they think will make their families happy. We rise early and retire late, but Psalm 127:2 tells us that these efforts are futile. We are to do our best to provide for and protect our families, but we must trust first and foremost in God to take care of them. When we tend our gardens, we’re rewarded by corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, and beans. Just as the harvest of vegetables is our reward, a God-fearing child is a parent’s reward. After parents tend to their children’s instruction in the ways of God’s wisdom and His Word, they do see the work God is

Stop the Flow of Money It doesn’t matter whether we are on a fixed income or are blessed with abundant financial resources, a common denominator among enablers is the flow of money to our adult children. It doesn’t matter whether it’s $20 or $20,000, we must stop coming to the rescue with our checkbooks. Our money must cease being the life preservers that buoy up our adult children, keeping them afloat through yet another storm. We might be amazed at just how well our adult children can swim when given the opportunity to do so. More important, they just might be surprised at their own ability to survive without life support, a powerful lesson that no amount of money can purchase.

Then you repeat. The thing that goes badly wrong means that the someone we like has to take another step to get around the bad wrongness and back toward the something he wants VERY BADLY. He takes the next step, and everything goes even more badly wrong. Then he loses his map. Then his flashlight falls into a storm drain and he has an asthma attack and his seeing eye dog dies. Then the cop who pulls him over for speeding while driving drunk in the nude turns out to be the short-tempered father of the bride he is marrying tomorrow. Then it goes more badly wrong for the someone we like, much more badly. Then the party is attacked and scattered by a band of goblins, and then the Gollum is on his trail, and the lure of the Ring is slowly destroying his mind. Then he finds the blasted corpses of his foster parents killed by Imperial Storm Troopers, and his house burnt to the ground. Then Lex Luthor chains a lump of Kryptonite around his neck and pushes him into a swimming pool and fires twin stealth atomic rockets at the San Andreas Fault in California and at Hackensack, New Jersey. And the spunky but beautiful girl reporter falls into a crack in the earth and dies. Then he is stung by Shelob and dies. Then he is maimed by Darth Vader and discovers his arch foe is his very own father, and he loses his grip and falls. Then he steps out unarmed to confront Lord Voldemort and dies. Then Judas Iscariot kisses him, Peter denounces him, he is humiliated, spat upon, whipped, betrayed by the crowd, tortured, sees his weeping mother, and dies a painful, horrible death and dies. Then he is thrown overboard and swallowed by a whale and dies. Then he gets help, gets better, arises from his swoon, is raised from the dead, the stone rolls back, the lucky shot hits the thermal exhaust port, and the Death Star blows up, the Dark Tower falls, the spunky but beautiful girl reporter is alive again due to a time paradox, and he is given all power under heaven and earth and either rides off into the sunset, or goes back to the bat-cave, or ascends into heaven, and we roll the credits.

Your parents didn't particularly care if you wanted to carpool with someone else to swimming lessons; it was convenient for you and Amanda Hammels to travel together, even if you never talked to each other in school, so, by god, that was the way it was going to be.

Next, stand strong. Your daughter needs a wall to swim to, and she needs you to be a wall that can withstand her comings and goings. Some parents feel too hurt by their swimmers, take too personally their daughter’s rejections, and choose to make themselves unavailable to avoid going through it again. Of course, in some ways it does feel better to avoid certain emotional whiplash. But being unavailable comes at a cost. Unavailable parents miss out on some wonderful, if brief, moments with their daughters. Worse, their daughters are left without a wall to swim to and must navigate choppy—and sometimes dangerous—waters all on their own.

When you’re a parent, you’re consciously aware that these days are ahead, destined to find you. You try to prepare, and you think you’ll be ready, but it’s not possible. These moments always seem so damn far away at the time, and then—bam. No more piggyback rides, no more swimming lessons, no more birthday cake painting the walls. It’s like I blinked and you were older.

As the sun was coming up over the horizon, Willy shook himself awake. He had slept safely between his parents in the middle of their pod, where all the little ones slept. He wanted to swim and stretch and jump out of the water like he had seen the adult whales jump. Willy bumped into the other whales around him as he stretched. Some of them were young ones and when they awoke, they shook and stretched, bumping against the adults. Eventually, the entire pod awoke and began moving around for the day. They would soon be moving toward food. Willy joined with three young whales as they swam to the top for air. They blew out the cold air through their blowholes and took in deep breaths before submersing again. But this time, each of them went down deep, then turned around and raced for the surface. As they broke through the surface, their bodies kept climbing toward the big blue sky. Willy was still small, so he was able to jump higher than the adult whales.

Do we know of effective ways to help the poor?” Implicit in Singer’s argument for helping others is the idea that you know how to do it: The moral imperative to ruin your suit is much less compelling if you do not know how to swim. This is why, in The Life You Can Save, Singer takes the trouble to offer his readers a list of concrete examples of things that they should support, regularly updated on his Web site.12 Kristof and WuDunn do the same. The point is simple: Talking about the problems of the world without talking about some accessible solutions is the way to paralysis rather than progress. This is why it is really helpful to think in terms of concrete problems which can have specific answers, rather than foreign assistance in general: “aid” rather than “Aid.” To take an example, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), malaria caused almost 1 million deaths in 2008, mostly among African children.13 One thing we know is that sleeping under insecticide-treated bed nets can help save many of these lives. Studies have shown that in areas where malaria infection is common, sleeping under an insecticide-treated bed net reduces the incidence of malaria by half.14 What, then, is the best way to make sure that children sleep under bed nets? For approximately $10, you can deliver an insecticide-treated net to a family and teach the household how to use it. Should the government or an NGO give parents free bed nets, or ask them to buy their own, perhaps at a subsidized price? Or should we let them buy it in the market at full price? These questions can be answered, but the answers are by no means obvious. Yet many “experts” take strong positions on them that have little to do with evidence. Because malaria is contagious, if Mary sleeps under a bed net, John is less likely to get malaria—if at least half the population sleeps under a net, then even those who do not have much less risk of getting infected.15 The problem is that fewer than one-fourth of kids at risk sleep under a net:16 It looks like the $10 cost is too much for many families in Mali or Kenya. Given the benefits both to the user and others in the neighborhood, selling the nets at a discount or even giving them away would seem to be a good idea. Indeed, free bed-net distribution is one thing that Jeffrey Sachs advocates.

During the first part of this stage, the encouragement and support of parents and teachers was crucial to the child’s progress, but eventually the students began to experience some of the rewards of their hard work and became increasingly self-motivated. A piano student performed for others and appreciated the applause. A swimmer basked in the approval and respect of peers. These students became more vested in the process, and their self-image started to include those abilities that were setting them apart from their peers. In the case of team sports, like swimming, the students often relished being part of a group of like-minded people. But whatever the reasons, the motivation started to shift from external to internal in origin.