To Swim with Dry Hair
This morning I biked to the local pool, trying to get some lanes in before the day kicked off. I needed to be back in time for the school run and to get ready for work. I thought it would just be easier and faster if I didn't get my hair wet.
But as I kept swimming I thought to myself: this doesn't feel right.
I'm just busy keeping my hair dry, I don't feel as if I'm swimming properly.
It made me think of a Dutch book title which describes the illusion of wanting to do good without ever getting your hands dirty. It is called: ‘Zwemmen Met Droog Haar’ or ‘To Swim With Dry Hair’.
Whether you're parenting or teaching, the pressure to swim with dry hair can be huge. You try to be a calm and reliable anchor. You try to create a caring and healing environment. You try to swim through the big emotions while you also try to keep your own big emotions safely below surface.
Neither teaching nor parenting takes place in a quiet pool in Manchester at 6.30am, but in a choppy sea with a sometimes suddenly strong current.
When a child is struggling and fighting to float, they need to be noticed to know they wont go under. They need to hear a steady voice remind them that if they can trust the water it will hold them, that fighting will use all their energy and get them nowhere. They need to know they aren't alone.
They don’t need someone standing safely on the shore, giving them calm instructions. They need someone who will swim in the choppy water with them.
If you try too hard to keep your hair dry, your child will notice and will feel the distance; feeling that they are going through it unseen, that’s a risky place to be.
Choosing to swim means accepting that often you will get completely drenched. Some days the waves are high and sometimes a wave can suddenly come crashing down on you, you might both go completely under for a short moment. It is not ideal. But when you re-emerge it will be with a shared experience, a shared knowing.
By going in the water together, surviving the waves it together, you accept that parenting is never going to be flawless, but that you can try to be the best companion in the water you can be.
The moment you resurface and reconnect, no matter how far you've drifted off course, there might be that acknowledgement that you were with them through it all, that's well worth soaked hair.
- Maartje