In The Cruising Life, Jim Trefethen argues that cruisers with children are the most successful because they are the most conservative. They have something very important to protect — the lives of their own children. We are conservative about weather, about selecting an anchorage, about equipment and money and destinations. We take less risks than your average couple with no ties. And this makes us more successful… it also ensures that very very few cruising kids are seriously injured. The stories in the literature are so few and so far between as to render them complete and utter anomalies. In fact, statistically you’d be hard pressed to prove that cruising kids are at more risk than their land based brethren. It looks like it may well be the opposite.

Yes, you are SuperMom, and it is your preparation and paranoia that ensure that your children will not become some horrifying footnote in the cruising mags. But perhaps more importantly, your kids are rapidly growing into SuperKids with an appreciation of physics well beyond that of bubble wrapped, electronics guzzling land joes with their hermetically sealed schools and round cornered play spaces.

Yes, you are responsible for their lives and their safety. However, your kids are amazing. Don’t forget that. Mia is 4. I’ll bet she already knows how to swim. I bet in 12 months that child will turn into a creature perilously close to pure aquatic. She’ll be spitting water in a fountain and waving her arms when you arrive with the life preserver.

Mary, mom to many

I started to go into detail here in the comment box but I’m deleting it all… not only because it’s too long for a comment box, but because of the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that the dreams and the ‘real’ memory then brings.

At least dreams like this make us uber-watchful!

I am the same way with my kids when we are near the lake in the summer. I never sit and read a book or sunbathe with my eyes closed. I am always watching my kids to make sure I see all 7 heads above water.

leeann