I hate lifeguards

Teenage tin pot dictators with whistles and megaphones do not command my respect

I hate lifeguards.

There they stand at the side of the pool, or perch on their absurdly tall crane-like chairs, imperiously surveying their domain for signs of the smallest transgression, ready to pounce with a whistle or a bullhorned shout. The boys strut or stalk; the girls flounce or sidle. (There are no men and women, even among those of legal age, lifeguarding being a job no true self-respecting adult ever undertakes.) As with all minor functionaries granted authority over petty realms, their tiny power has gone to their head. There is no infraction so minor a lifeguard will not place bullhorn to lips to politely but firmly chastise an offender.

I spent the summers of my youth swimming, mostly at private pools where the lifeguards were a fixture, but had achieved a somewhat amicable stand-off with the pack of neighborhood kids who comprised the regular crowd. We knew the rules, and the lifeguards knew us: which of us had trouble swimming, which were prone to bending rules. With this familiarity came a certain relaxation of the typical rigor in enforcement one might expect. To a point, for some of us.

Then as a teenager, I spent most days of the year swimming several miles 25 yards at a time as a competitive swimmer. There were sometimes technically lifeguards on duty, but they were vestigial and we all knew it. We certainly had no need of their services, nor were we expected to respond to their decrees. A certain amount of horseplay, even a bit of grab-ass is par for the course on a boys’ swim team, and any lifeguard who couldn’t tolerate that simple fact didn’t last.

As an adult, most of my encounters with the red-suited ones are at public pools and waterfronts. They are a rotating cast of strangers ruling uneasily over an unruly public. Each year I get older, and they stay the same age. (Alright alright alright). Over time they advanced from being my rough age-peers to rude children attempting to command my respect. I will not give it to them, even as I begrudgingly coach my children to respect their orders. For my part, I will not, even as I comply the minimal amount.

I am a grown man. I’m not in the same shape I was during my days of conditioning, but I can still out-swim all but the most adept of them. I have the same water safety and rescue skills and education they possess. And I spit on their attempts to constrain my behavior to the bottom-tier standard they impose.

But as a parent, this poses a conundrum. When the acne-specked fascist in red orders my (very adept) young children to pass a swim test, when any idiot can clearly see them already capably swimming in water over their heads, what am I to do? I do in fact want my children to respect authority, even arbitrary and unjust authority. They’ll have plenty of time when they’re older to draw distinctions for themselves, but while they’re young the rule is straightforward: yes, you must obey the idiot, that’s how life works. So I shut my mouth. When the lifeguard shouts one at a time! at us for having the temerity to share space on the stairs to the water slide, rather than patiently queuing at the bottom until the last rider exits, I grimace and hold my tongue. Yes, it’s a dumb rule kids, but we still have to obey it.

My children aren’t old enough to draw these important distinctions, to understand that rules such as these are designed for the bottom quintile, not my 99th percentile conscientious children. They don’t grasp how dehumanizing it is to be treated as if we were in that bottom quintile, despite our obvious social advantages and better behavior. They can’t comprehend the inherent barbarity of the impartial and total application of the letter of the law, the yawning gulf between the purpose of rules and their enforcement in practice, the chasm dividing our ability to govern ourselves and arbitrary authority’s power to second-guess us.

They don’t feel these tensions. But I do. They’re humiliating even as they pose no real threat to my parental authority.

Ultimately I command my children and am responsible for their safety. They know with iron certainty that I can and will save them from drowning and am the final arbiter of their behavior in public. They understand implicitly that I grant this authority to the bored but watchful teenagers — their authority stems from me. As we are not low class, I don’t need to demonstratively argue with the teenage whistleblowers for my children to understand this power dynamic, it comes to them naturally. And yet. And yet.

Someday, my beautiful and capable sons and daughters, you will be old enough to hold these pompous, petty despots in contempt, as is only right. You will assume your true station, I promise you will.

Until then: yes, you have to take the swim test.