All these people are essentially standing around in their underwear in broad daylight.
Where else do people wear so little clothing in public? Even at the gym you don’t see this much thigh.
Seriously, teenage girls? The string bikini tops and short-shorts weren’t revealing enough? You had to roll down the waistband, too?
When did I get to be such a prude? I went topless on a beach in France once. Boy, that was a mistake. They don’t make sunscreen strong enough to protect some body parts.
My back feels like it’s getting burnt. How can that clear spray-on sunscreen possibly work?
Poor Riley. He’s cursed with my red hair and pale skin. And guys can’t even use self-tanner without being mocked. Unless they’re on “Dancing with the Stars.”
Man boobs are so much worse than beer bellies.
I’m really glad my 5yo can swim and that there are competent lifeguards here, because I’m so busy keeping my toddler above water I don’t even know where Miles is right now.
I know the lifeguards are competent because last week when I turned my back for a second and Riley took that opportunity to throw himself into the pool, a lifeguard got to him before I could. Whew.
Just how much pool water can a small child drink before he explodes?
You would think after 3 hours of vigorous swimming and playing in the hot sun, my kids would have used up their energy for the day. You would be wrong.
Why do they always eat every single snack I brought within the first hour?
Why do they always want to play with everyone else’s pool toys, and never the huge bag full of THEIR toys I lug here day after day?
Why do we come all the way to the pool so they can do things they could do at home, like play with trucks and dig in the sandbox?
Look at those people with their chairs and their books. Sitting. Reading. Someday that’ll be me. Someday…
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Summer musings at the pool, huh? Very funny and the pics of the young ladies trying to make their clothes fall off are just the norm today. I don’t think folks think much about what is appropriate in various settings and pretty much wear whatever they fele like…of course, there is also a bit of “show off rebellion” in a lot if it, too.
I don’t think I’m prudish, but, I would like to see a bit more thought given to where and when you wear such little strips of clothing. Oh well, I guess that makes me a geezer codger for sure.
As fun and refreshing as the pool water can be on a hot summer day, we go through so much when it comes to “going swimming.” The older I get the less I look forward to it for my own sake, but seeing the thrill my daughters get out of it (and at how much of the other annoying stuff they miss) is what keeps me going back.
The thing that gets me about bikinis is how most people don’t have any business wearing them. Why would you deliberately put your body out there like that?
And I can’t stand seeing little girls in bikinis.
I totally relate to turning your back and losing track of the kids. This is why I can’t go to the pool with my three…have to have backup!!! There is no lifeguard at our neighborhood pool.
I had a very similar experience to this at the pool here yesterday.
Except that I also pondered the possibility that those breasts were real on one mom wearing a rather alarmingly small bikini. Well, the bikini wasn’t perhaps alarmingly small for, say, a college student on a beach. But it sure was for a mother with three kids under the age of seven at the neighborhood pool in Suburbia.
And I fretted about whether the underside of the baby’s chin was going to get suburned from the glare reflected off the pool.
And I worried about the kids developing ocular melanoma, which I’d never heard of until yesterday, when a discussion took place on one of my professional journalists’ list-serves about the effectiveness of sunglasses.
And I wished that I had the nerve to bring along adult beverages to the pool, like some parents, except that I really need to be completely unimpaired for when the baby launches himself, with no fear, into the big pool while I stop to adjust my older son’s snorkel mask. Because his plain old goggles are “too small for my eyes, Mommy.”
And in case anyone wants to criticize bathing suits with skirts attached, I just want to point out that they should be glad that I at least attempt to cover some of the least attractive parts of my body. That’s especially so, given the amount of leaning over and chasing that I have to do during an average pool visit with a one-year-old and a five-year-old.
LOL, Jennifer! You crack me up. 🙂 I have had all these thoughts & concerns, too. And I have written an entire treatise on the beauty of the swim skirt and tankini! An active mom’s gift from god, for sure.
I shudder with fear the day my girls hit teenage years and they decide they want to dress like that.
The pool is like an anthropological study sometimes.
How funny–I, too, swam topless in the south of France (and I’m glad my 17-year-old self enjoyed the experience, because I won’t be doing it again any time soon!).
I agree with all your musings, and I’ll add a couple of my own:
Where do some people get their (inexplicable) body confidence? Without fail, the people who most like to strut their stuff are the people who would most benefit from a cover-up.
Just how strong is the kiddie-pool chlorine? I hope they aim for “strong enough to kill all manner of bacteria” and stop just shy of “strong enough to peel the polish off my nails.”
And don’t worry, by the time Riley is old enough to care, self-tanner will have worked its way into male-grooming products, if it hasn’t already. 🙂