Reply to Puddle jumper for 25lb 3-year-old

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Reply to "Puddle jumper for 25lb 3-year-old"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Well, I had 3 babies in 2 years (twins) and you can bet I made some use of coastguard approved puddle jumpers. Did not prevent my kids from learning to swim because of course we didn’t do that *instead* of lessons and actual swim learning time. Just to make the logistics safer and possible of taking 3 preschoolers by myself to play in the shallow end. Every freaking trip to the pool I reminded them that only a grownup takes off your life jacket, and made them practice what it feels like to swim without it (one at a time) to reduce any false sense of security.[/quote]

This is precisely why I find the anti puddle jumper people so annoying. Their argument is that a parent's ability to use her own judgment to ensure her child's safety is never to be trusted, while at the same time insisting that you NOT use a handy tool that can help keep your child safe.

They insist that you must teach your child to swim without any flotation device, which of course means that you must physically support your child in the pool at all times until they can swim independently. If this takes years, too bad. If you have multiple children then oh well I guess you cannot go to the pool at all unless you have one adult per child to ensure they can be in someone's arms at all times. Again, possibly for years. It is an absurd expectation and it's premised on the idea that a person could not possibly find a way to use these devices responsibly by using their own good judgment to ensure that they are not lulled into a false sense of security and that they take steps (including formal swim lessons and informal training on their own) to ensure their kids learn to swim properly.

It's ridiculous but that's the whole point -- create a set of parameters so strict no one can reasonably meet them, thus ensuring that a parent (even one who has successfully taught all their children to swim and whose children have never been improperly supervised at the pool) is never doing anything to your satisfaction.

Really it's just another way for judgmental, superior jerks to yell at moms in the name of child safety.[/quote]

Thank you. I’m the twin mom you responded to and this is so well stated. There is definitely a “families with more kids than parents are irresponsible” energy to the “well just hold them the whole time” thing and it’s infuriating and unfair. [/quote]

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