Train Up A Child

From the time I was eight years old until I was nineteen, I spent my summers taking swimming lessons and eventually teaching swimming or working as a lifeguard. In the end, I was a Red Cross Instructor and held a Silver Medallion (Award of Merit) from the Royal Life Saving Society. I still love to swim, albeit with much less intense speed and vigour. In those days there was no public indoor or outdoor, for that matter, swimming pool in the city where I grew up. All instruction was conducted at an open air facility at one of two lakes. As you can imagine, weather was a great factor in lesson planning. As I matured, we spent more and more time in the water during cool and windy conditions. In August, the lessons were moved to a smaller but deeper lake in order to work on deep water and life saving skills. The painfully frigid temperature of the water in late August is something I remember to this day. Swimming through a misty fog for examination day was somewhat common in the early morning.

One of the great pleasures that I realize in retrospect was the way that I got to the swimming lessons. From the time I was ten until I was about fourteen, I rode my gearless coaster brake bicycle the seven miles (11.2 kilometres) to and from my lessons. My summer physical fitness after bicycling 22.4 kilometres and swimming for forty minutes five days a week was not something that concerned my parents. Lately, I have been remembering the exhilaration of that daily bicycle ride. For some reason, I only recall the beautiful sunny days. I remember more summer warmth than I am sure there really was. I remember only level or downhill hedged walking paths. I remember purchasing and savouring that ten cent Jersey Milk chocolate bar each and every day. Given the level of strenuous exercise, calories and sugar were not a concern. On some days in August, when the ride was even further, my father would put my bicycle in the trunk of his car and drop me off at my paternal grandparents’ home on his way to work. My grandfather was already at work and my grandmother who was an invalid for the last ten years of her life was still in bed. I sat in the quiet of that house reading until it was time to bike the rest of the way down a secondary highway to the swimming lesson awaiting me. I wonder sometimes if sitting in the quiet prior to riding in complete isolation shaped me as somewhat contemplative as an older adult.

I also wonder at the trust shown by responsible parents in an admittedly much safer time. I couldn’t imagine our or indeed the current generation of parents allowing such independence at ten years of age. What a great loss has been suffered by both succeeding generations. By allowing such early independence in both decision making and physical fitness, lifelong skills, not to mention work ethic indoctrination, were encouraged to flourish. I realize that my parents’ generation were not really aware of the luxury they enjoyed in being able to parent in a much less controlling and hands on manner. I also realize that we live in a much different world today. I believe, however, that there is much to be learned from them and applied to parenting today. The same principle of allowing the child to experience, make decisions and learn independently can be used with some required modern world restraints of course. There is much wisdom in the word of God in Proverbs 22:6.

6 ¶ Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.

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