When to Let Go

Print PDF

This morning my children and I decided to take a quick swim. We have friends coming over this afternoon, so it couldn’t be too long but the water was so crystal clear and the perfect temperature; not too cold, but still refreshing. The sun was shining and it was already hot at 11AM, so we threw on our suits and hopped in.

After some time, I knew I needed to start getting ready and as I enjoyed my last few minutes in the pool, I looked at my two children and wondered if it would be ok to leave them in the pool, alone, while I took a shower and got dressed. They’re both strong swimmers and they’re 12 and 15 years old. But should I? Would they know what to do in an emergency? Even though I’ve drummed into their heads, “if there’s an emergency, call 911, come get me, if there’s an emergency, call 911, come get me”, but would they remember, God forbid if something did happen, would they have the presence of mind to remember the drill? Twelve and Fifteen…

When I was twelve, younger even – my friends and I went out early in the morning and didn’t come home until dark. We’d stop at someone’s houses for lunch or scrounge together whatever coins we had in our pockets and eat a candy lunch from Bennett’s, the neighborhood luncheonette – sometimes we’d get a sandwich from the deli and split it, or bug Al at Chicken Delight, who happened to rent the apartment in my mother’s house, until he took pity on us and gave us a bucket of chicken. I don’t think any of our parents knew where we were. We were the original latch key kids and all of our parents worked.

On really hot days, when his brothers weren’t using the pool, we went to Rory’s and swam down to the deep end of his pool, chasing coins or whatever was handy, diving off the sides and even jumping off the roof of the garage into the pool. I don’t know how no one noticed this and stopped us, but we survived.

Warm summer nights we played manhunt – from Merrick Rd to Sunrise Highway, two very busy roads and from Oceanside Rd. to 7-11 which was probably just a little less than 1/2 a mile. We played well into the night, running through people’s yards, yelling to each other and we really didn’t get into too much trouble, except from two cranky old neighbors – although thinking back on it, we were very loud and they were probably trying to sleep.

And as I thought about that, I realized that we all survived, we all made it to adulthood, no one died, at least not from the pool or manhunt – and while we probably should have had more supervision, we certainly didn’t need as much as my children get.

I contemplated this for a while and then reminded my children that we don’t roughhouse in the pool, nor dive off the sides and that we needed to respect the water and then I went inside and took a shower, leaving my children in the pool. And you know what? They were just fine.

It is OK to use my photos or content provided a link back and proper crediting is given