Editor’s Note: Jill Filipovic is a journalist based in New York and author of the book “OK Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind.” Follow her on Twitter. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely her own. View more opinion on CNN.
With Memorial Day weekend behind us, summer is now nearly upon us. As a kid, I spent nearly every summer day at our local pool, swimming well past the point where my fingers were shriveled, my hair fried from chlorine and I was water-logged and exhausted. As a teenager, I spent my summers working as a lifeguard and swim instructor, teaching little kids how to float on their backs in between bouts of pool-scanning and suntanning (sorry, skin). I love the water: being on it, being near it, being in it.
But this past weekend alone, several people drowned or nearly drowned during what should have been relaxing days by the water. Several weeks ago, Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Shaquil Barrett lost his two-year-old daughter in a drowning accident in his home pool. Drowning remains among the leading causes of death of children, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And most drowning deaths happen over the summer.
Can’t we do better than this?
Drowning, like any other accident, is sometimes not wholly avoidable. But often it is. And this is a pretty cracked code: We know that teaching kids how to swim starting from a young age, and teaching them basic water safety, can go a long way in preventing drowning deaths, as can keeping an eagle eye on kids when they’re near water, which is why lifeguards are so invaluable. And yet, as swimming season in the US kicks off, there’s a nationwide lifeguard shortage that will imperil all of us – and children most especially.
The first step is making sure that every American kid knows how to swim, and understands basic water safety. Swimming lessons keep kids safer and have the knock-on benefit of creating more potential lifeguards.
That might sound ambitious, and there are real barriers to achieving this. Families in dense cities or low-income communities may not have a pool in striking distance or the resources to pay for swimming lessons. Many high schools lack swimming pools and I’ve certainly never seen an elementary school with a pool on site. But there are simple, creative solutions to be found – for example, a federal program to bus elementary school kids to the closest local pool for after-school swim classes, at no cost to parents.
Drowning deaths, like so much else in America, are not distributed equally. Black kids are five and a half times as likely as White children to drown in swimming pools, according to a report from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Unsurprisingly, these are among the same groups of kids who are less likely to get formal swimming lessons, perhaps because of some combination of cost, time, and accessibility. For example, according to research conducted in Chicago and published in Pediatrics in 2022, almost three-quarters of White children take swimming lessons, less than half of Black and Latino children do. Parents who are busy working multiple jobs or inconsistent hours may not have the time to dedicate to ferrying their kids to and from the local pool; there just might not be enough in the budget for swim classes when it’s hard to pay for basics like food.
These norms are also generational. While the same 2022 report found that more than half of White parents say that they are comfortable with their swimming abilities, only about a quarter of Black and Hispanic parents say the same. One has to wonder how much the American history of segregation, which routinely mandated Whites-only pools, severed this generational skill-sharing. If a parent doesn’t feel comfortable in the water, it stands to reason that they might be less likely to introduce their children to the water, and water safety, from an early age.
There’s also an age and gender dynamic at play. Very young kids – those 4 and under – are the most likely drowning victims, and infants are most likely to drown in bathtubs and buckets, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Swimming lessons may not save an 18-month-old from drowning in the bath, but they might save a four-year-old from drowning in a pool. And a nationwide effort to teach water safety could impart to all Americans the pleasures and dangers of the water, and emphasize how important it is to keep an eye on your kids any time they’re near water, no matter how routine the interaction is or how small the water source.
Also at high risk are teenage boys, who are 10 times more likely to drown than girls, according to the same report. We know that teenagers generally, and teenage boys in particular, often take unnecessary risks. We can lecture them all we want, but they might be better off if we gave them the tools to keep themselves as safe as possible.
Is drowning the number-one threat facing American children? No – that would be guns. And a sensible country would do something about the fact that nearly one in five childhood deaths is the result of a firearm.
But just because drowning isn’t the top killer of American kids doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do about it. In my years as a lifeguard, our pool luckily saw no fatalities, although we did pluck more than a couple of drowning kids out of the water. And over the years I taught dozens – probably more than 100 – kids the basics of swimming and water safety.
At the time, it just felt like fun, gratifying work. In hindsight, I’m proud that it may have been lifesaving. But the skills I taught, and the skills I learned as a young swimmer and then as a lifeguard, shouldn’t only be on offer for the kids with well-resourced parents. We could create a national swimming curriculum, much as we’ve created a vast network of public schools to make sure that kids can read and count. Water skills are not as necessary as literacy and numeracy, but swimming is still a life-saving skill. And it’s one every American child deserves to have.