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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]By what age do kids know how to swim around here? [/quote]4-6 yo[/quote]

Wow that seems young to me. I'm my area it's by age 8[/quote]

8 seems very late, unless those kids are never going to any pool, beach, etc for fun. If they are, it’s a safety issue. We never did swim lessons, but we taught both of our kids to swim at age 2.5-3 yo. Of course we still closely supervised them for at least a couple more years, but the earlier kids learn, the easier it is, the less likely they are to get afraid of putting their face in the water, etc.

My siblings & I, who weren’t on any swim teams and grew up nowhere near DC, also all learned to swim around age 3 (again, taught by our parents). So it’s not just about a competitive swim culture.  [/quote]

But if your parents taught you how to swim, they must have still had a pool reasonably accessible to them, right?  I think you have to keep in mind that this is NOT common everywhere.  The town I grew up in had no public or community pools, it just wasn't a thing.  Many people built above ground pools in their backyards.  There was a YMCA, but we weren't members.  My mom found out about an apartment complex pool that opened up lessons to non-residents, and would then let you stay for free swim afterwards.  So we spent several summers going there and my siblings and I were all decent swimmers.

The high school I attended had a pool and we had a session of swimming phys ed.  There were many fellow students who had never swam beyond their backyard above ground pool and once they couldn't touch the bottom, could not swim very well at all.  I was not an athlete but that was the one time I was better than the athletes, lol.

I'm always surprised be people that can't imagine anything beyond their own experience. Shrug.[/quote]

You had access to a pool, the Y. Public and community pools aren't free either.  But they are reasonably accessible. This is common despite your made up idea that this is not which your own anecdote negates. Learning to swim is a life skill that all parents should make a priority at an early age.[/quote]

DP.  I'm confused by your assumption.  There are a lot of places that don't even have a Y, and not all families can afford the membership anyway.  Have some of y'all have never been anywhere outside your DMV bubble?[/quote]I grew up in a combo of very rural Texas with no public pools and New Hampshire with no public pools.

I can barely swim because I never had an opportunity to learn. I was in a pool only a handful of times in my life before I was an adult.  [/quote]

Yeah the smugness/ignorance in some of these replies is pretty stunning.  And it’s obvious most of those posters are white.  My parents grew up in the segregated south and couldn’t swim themselves.  As with many other things, the historic racial divide doesn’t magically go away. [/quote]

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