The NZ Herald had a headline the other day about Richie McCaw’s “sacrifice” in taking over the lion’s share of parenting duties while the hockey career of his wife, Gemma, gets ready for the Olympics. The story (with a new headline, apparently) is here. I’m not going to add to the scorn heaped upon the paper for the story but I am going to use the photo that illustrated the story, of McCaw in the pool with his daughter swimming lessons, as the basis for this post.

In particular, I want to praise the value of swimming lessons for dads.

I’d love to be a stay-at-home father but, in our family, the economics didn’t really tilt that way. Through careful planning and budgeting, however, we are lucky to to be one of the increasingly rare families where my wife has the choice of being a full-time parent. It’s an option she has quite happily exercised. 

This has, as you might expect, resulted in an incredibly tight bond between our three boys and their mother. I work long hours and we have to be disciplined about making sure there are opportunities for me to be involved in their lives. One of the duties I have come to cherish the most is being responsible for teaching them to swim.

I’m not entirely sure why, but there’s something about it that really captures the essence of fatherhood for me.

I think it has something to do with the way that you’re encouraging your kid to take a series of greater and greater risks in a controlled environment. As they learn to have faith that you’ve got them if something goes wrong, they become more confident to stretch and push themselves. Like a microcosm of the job of parenting.

One thing I noticed early on during those early morning weekend trips to the pool was just how many other dads there were doing the same thing. It’s not all fathers, of course, and there are always plenty of mothers on pool duty. But, at least at our local municipal pool, the Saturday morning ratio of dads to mums seems to be about 3:1. 

The full range of fathers are there too. There are the lean, muscular dads who look like they might have waxed for the occasion. Then there are the dads like me who are struggling with their weight. These come in two subcategories: those who seek to disguise their physique by wearing a t-shirt and the others (also like me) who have decided just to let it all hang out.

Some dads have tattoos and others have earrings. There are those with weddings bands and those with out. Some are there with just one, others have a whole troop clambering over their backs.

In all cases, however, the common denominator is the admiration that little kids have for their fathers and their delight in paternal approval. Next time you’re at the pool, just try listening out for how many times you hear “Hey Dad, look what I can do!” being yelled out. So perhaps its not surprising how many fathers jump at the chance to take the lead on swimming.

Richie McCaw included, no doubt