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When Mothers Get Arrested for Mothering. Raising independent kids shouldn’t be this hard. (www.theatlantic.com)
submitted 14 hours ago by to c/news@lemmy.world
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[–] 4 points 4 hours ago (1 child)

I don’t think this is an acceptable level of risk.

I think it pretty much purely depends on whether he knows how to swim and is a reasonably strong swimmer, but that is possible by 5. Mine was only a year older when he had completed swimming lessons and I was confident enough to leave him unsupervised in my in-laws backyard with a pond.

Prior to that, to your point, I did have to yank him out one and he absolutely could've drowned had I not been there.

If he hasn't had swimming lessons and lots of practice, I agree.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

    I think a lot of the downvotes I've gotten are from people who haven't been exposed to much water. I grew up in Australia, we're almost all trained swimmers.

    But even here swimming lessons aren't common before 5.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago

    I grew up in Florida and most houses have in ground pools, I had swim classes in elementary school and they've expanded that program AFAIK, and people with swimming pools go out of their way to make sure their kids can swim - while I'm sure they're not widespread, infant swim classes are a thing. I was already a strong swimmer at five, I'm pretty sure I was water skiing in a local lake at that age, lol.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 hours ago

    I agree. I grew up in a place with very, very hot summers and open irrigation canals for farming; we had multiple kids die every year, many who knew how to swim but weren't strong swimmers. Even pool deaths happened every year, and those are fenced in by law. We had PSAs every year for both, it was a big issue.

    Most kids don't have access to open bodies of water, so most kids don't drown. That doesn't translate to a valid risk assessment of drowning for kids that do have access and opportunity for it.

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