A trendy sport at Seattle parks these days is slacklining – similar to tightrope walking, only it involves balancing on a belt strap that’s stretched between two attachment points, like trees. It’s also different from tightrope walking because the line isn’t rigidly taut; it stretches and bounces like a long, narrow trampoline.

While I’ve yet to give it a go, I know what slacklining feels like. I’m slacklining it every day in my parenting – taking it one foot at a time, trying to strike just the right balance, and keeping steady by fixing my eyes on the anchor point of providing the right conditions for my children to mature.

For two weeks in July, while my daughters were taking swimming lessons, my balancing act teetered between seeing them as young, immature, and in need – and also seeing when I need to step back to allow room for their growth.

It’s a slackline I’m balancing on all the time, but with the swimming lessons, I was oscillating from the start, when we first signed the girls up. Are we rushing them? Are they too little for this? My nearly four-year-old, a fish, seemed ready. And while her sister, at 2-¾ years old, also delights in the water, I wouldn’t have put her in lessons if it weren’t for her big sis. But the sisters, who are close in age as well as in camaraderie, are both slow to warm up to new people. I knew that their main challenge would be separation from me – not skill – and that they’d be more comfortable if they had each other in the same class.

Flash forward to our first day of lessons, when it’s time to get in the water. I held both of my daughters’ hands as we approached the steps where Teacher Alex waited. He was enthusiastic, fun, and confidently in charge, but didn’t intrigue them as much as a fellow student did – a young boy, fully panicked and clinging to his mother’s leg, screaming. Within seconds, another young girl began crying for her mom, too. Then another child refused to get in, fleeing the pool while his mother herded him back.

“Whadya’ say, girls?” I asked in my peppiest, confidence-inspiring voice. “Ready to get in?”

I kicked off my flip-flops and sat on the ledge. My girls seemed okay sitting next to me, but refused to dip their toes in next to mine, their little fingers morphed into claws that dug into my neck and shoulders. “No, no, no!” they said, frantically shaking their heads.

Ten minutes later, the scene looked about the same and poor Teacher Alex hadn’t lured a single child into the pool.

I started wobbling on the slackline. On the one hand, I wanted to protect my girls and have their first experience with swimming lessons feel safe and fun. On the other, my girls were already totally comfortable in the water. And I’d be sitting all of three feet away for a quick 30-minute class. This wasn’t major separation. They could handle it, right? But I was coddling them, which seemed to send the message I didn’t believe they could.

I decided to switch gears. “I’ve got to grab something out of our bags, girls,” I said, pointing to “right over there” where “I’ll be watching the whole time.” Despite their initial fear, within ten seconds my oldest shot her hand up high to take the first “rocketship ride.” Minutes later my youngest lunged for Teacher Alex’s shoulder, giggling and let him dunk her again and again. Throughout the rest of class, the sheer glee on their faces was infectious.

Their enthusiasm lasted throughout the day. They asked to call up relatives to tell them all about swimming. Everything was, “Alex this …” and “Alex that …” with chatter about “overhand scoops” and “bobs.” Clearly, they’d bonded with their teacher and felt proud of what they’d done. I felt pride in the way I’d handled it, too.

I wish I could end this post here, and say that I successfully crossed the slackline. Had lessons only lasted a day that would be the case. But every day, we repeated the same experience again and again – with each day their feelings of separation from me overwhelmed their joy in the pool more and more. By the time the last day of class came around, neither of my girls would get in the pool at all.

That’s when I fell off the slackline altogether. Clearly my approach wasn’t working, and it was too late to find my place of balance, even if I’d had eyes to see how to find it.

Now that it’s been a few weeks, I see how I could have been steadier on that slackline. The doubt I’d had all along – about whether I was doing the right thing enrolling them in lessons or whether I was rushing them – was surely coming through to my perceptive girls. After all, it was my first guilt-ridden thought each time they panicked about separating from me. Had I been able to firmly believe in the lessons, I think that attitude shift would have gone a long way.

And with distance and time, I also see ways I could have better equipped Teacher Alex, giving him the permission he needed to make the first move in playfully getting the girls into the water – so they weren’t faced into separation from me, but instead faced into fun with Alex.

Either way, I’m glad it’s a slackline I’m walking, and not a rigid tightrope – giving me room to bounce a bit, to stretch and grow and try out different ways of finding just the right balance to make it all the way across, tottering a little less with each new attempt. Next summer …

© Sara Easterly. All rights reserved.
This essay was first published as an editorial by the Seattle Neufeld Community.