Stage Mama?
I try very hard not to look like an exercise addict (working out in three sports, that can be tough), and I also fear seeming like a stage mother. So I smiled, then cringed under the surface of the pool when I saw Virginia—with whom I’d run six miles earlier that day—watching me swim laps with my seven-year-old, Lily. The 500-yard workout was Lily’s idea, but I probably planted the seed of it when I let her choose between staying at the nursery while I swam in the inside pool or instead hitting the outside pool to swim together.
It got me thinking about self-perception. I suppose Virginia just thought, “Oh, there she is playing with her kid,” but I felt that I must appear to be a monster, or at least a task master. Which is right? How seriously should we take our own self-images? They must form around a kernel of truth, pearls around sand.
And does it make it worse that Lily and I rode our bikes to the pool?
