Learning to Sail and Let Go

We mothers like to hover. Even those of us who preach about not hovering, well, sometimes we still hover. It’s hard to resist at times, despite what we know about letting go.

For me this summer, “letting go” came in the form of watching my older boys learn how to sail. Yes, on the water, in the wind, and with me watching helplessly from the shore. (Oh, I tried to sail with them once, but I immediately tipped the sailboat and was never invited back.)

Early this summer, friends of the family made an offer. They had a Sunfish, a small monohull sailboat, that hadn’t been on the water in a few years, and if our boys were interested, they’d loan it to them for the summer. My boys were definitely interested. The lake we go to has sailboat races every Sunday, and my boys wanted to be part of that. (Spoiler: a Sunfish cannot win against a Hobie Cat.)

The boat had belonged to our friends’ late son who had been a military pilot. He died young while serving in the United States Navy. With that bit of knowledge and history of the boat, my boys committed to racing it, win or lose (it would mostly be “lose”), every Sunday.

There was just one thing: My boys didn’t know how to sail.

So most days with even a hint of a breeze, they were on the water learning how to harness the wind with the Sunfish. I sat on the dock and watched them, all the while thinking about our friends’ son, the owner of the boat, and his mother.

The first time my oldest son raced the Sunfish alone, I trailed behind him in a motorboat. When I say I trailed behind him, I mean that I kept my distance (sort of) but stayed close enough to yell out really unhelpful advice. I just could not stop thinking about everything that could go wrong, and, well, he looked a bit like Truman at the end of the “Truman Show,” and that’s a very powerful ending. When my son eventually tipped the Sunfish, I was glad the motorboat was there to tow him back to shore.

My son felt otherwise: “Why did you trail me? That was the most annoying thing ever! I could have swum to shore!”

The next weekend, someone else from the racing group offered to take one of my sons on his Hobie Cat while the other son sailed the Sunfish with his grandfather. Since my dad had eyes on the Sunfish racer, I was free to hover at the Hobie Cat while the seasoned racer taught my son how to rig the sails. Someday, I know my sons will tell the story of how they learned to sail, and it will always include this generous racer whose voice exudes calm and patience.

But my son gave me a look that day that said, “You can go now,” as I stood awkwardly on the dock and asked whether he’d need a jacket. Finally, I got the picture. My boys are growing up. They don’t need me as much as before.

However, that didn’t stop me from getting on the committee boat, which is the official finish line of the race, and watching everything from there. And that’s when I saw up close how the Sunfish crawls to the finish (think: Spongebob’s “Two … hours … later …”) and the Hobie Cats zip along to the end.

But I also saw something else. My boys, under the instruction of their mentor, were capable and dedicated. They shifted their weight and their sails effortlessly. They tacked and — and, well, they did a bunch of other things that looked really cool but for which I have no eloquent words because I don’t know anything about sailing. And no matter how many hours had passed, if the boys were in the late-pilot’s Sunfish, they were determined to finish the race.

As the summer went on, the boys continued to practice with the Sunfish and they took turns helping race the Hobie Cat. I watched their confidence grow as I let myself relax.

The last sailboat race was this weekend, and there was a party afterward. My sons were some of the youngest participants by many years, and they also had the distinction of losing nearly every race for the entire season. But it never mattered. Those races, that Sunfish, and the older racers who had taken my boys under their, er, sail — it had all been about something more, something bigger. Because of the generosity of others, my boys gained a lifelong skill. But they gained also by learning from those of another generation and honoring the memory of someone who, like them, learned to sail at the lake.

My young sailors are forever better for it, and someday I know they will pay it forward. I’m just glad I finally got out of the way to let it happen.

In Defense of Snow days

When we moved to the Northeast 12 years ago, people’s concern for us was specific: How will they handle the winters? After our first year in Maine, however, my concern for people everywhere else we had lived — California, Florida, Virginia — was equally specific: How do they exist without the promise of snow days?

Sure, it snowed occasionally in Virginia, but in California and Florida, the only time our family had an unexpected day off was in the aftermath of a natural disaster. It’s not a true “family day” if your roof has been blown off and you have no air conditioning in Florida in August. 

Snow days, it turns out, are the best part of winter. They are the north’s best kept secret, a perk for adults, children — families. They are Christmas morning, Thanksgiving and the first day of summer rolled into one. Even when snow days delay the start of summer by a day or two, nothing compares to going to bed to the sound of snow plows and dreaming of an early-morning call from the school department. And when the call does come, the house is alive at 5 a.m. with the promise of pancakes, board games and sledding with friends. 

Snow days are some of our kids’ best childhood memories. As a mother, they are some of my fondest memories, too. So I was concerned when school departments began announcing plans to eliminate snow daysnow that everyone has figured out remote learning (thanks, COVID). 

But I’m not concerned just for sentimentality’s sake. I’m also concerned about the message we are sending our children. Ever since I got my first email address and, later, a smartphone, my work life has seeped into my home life. Beginning around 2009, I was suddenly available not just during work hours, but also while making dinner or watching a movie before bed. For adults, the phones in our back pockets have allowed constant work intrusion, a disruption to the work-life balance.

And in recent years, mental health experts have begun warning against it. Getting your “life in balance” never had more application than after electronics allowed our work life into our home life.

So why are we starting kids on this path in kindergarten? Why have we decided to tell them that just because the school is closed and the roads are impassable it doesn’t mean you can’t continue to burn the midnight oil? 

Our children have a whole lifetime ahead of them wrestling with work-life balance. They have a lifetime of being pinged at dinner or feeling obligated to check email before bed. Shouldn’t we begin teaching them now that sometimes work — and school — can wait? Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. And there is nothing wrong with taking a day off for family. 

We’re on the tip of a slippery slope now that remote learning has entered our lives. We adults have lived with the crushing reality of work-from-home life since the early 2000s. Let’s allow our kids to escape it while they can, and maybe, through our example, teach them to lead more balanced lives as adults in the future. 

Instead of telling our children that one missed day of school is a waste, let’s tell them that snow days are an important reminder to slow down, relax, and connect with family. In a pandemic era, we need those reminders — those snow days — more than ever.