Swimsuit Discrimination

In the very crowded areas of Big City, scattered througout the apartment buildings, are businesses that have swimming pools that are used exclusively for swimming lessons. We have one very close to our apartment, so I signed up the Juan Carlos (5 yrs.) and Pedro (18 mos.).





I have written a couple of times about Brazil's great fondness for the speedo swimsuit, or "sunga", for men. Neither the boys nor the man in my life have "gone native" in this aspect. When we go to the beach or to the pool they all wear their swim trunks and we look like the total foreigners that we are (the bermuda style shorts are not as shocking I'm sure as my and Margarita's one piece swimsuits-now those are a DEAD GIVEAWAY that we are not locals. And of course there's the white skin, that doesn't help so much either (some of us being whiter than others)).

Anyway, my point being, our choice in swimwear makes us stick out, but we're fine with that.

I'm not sure where my prejudice against the speedo comes from, but it is definitley there, deeply embedded in my subconscious mind. Where I grew up, the only time a guy wore a speedo was if he was on the swimteam and he was competing. He would wait until the last possible second to disrobe and then would quickly grab a towel as soon as his race was over. Despite their efforts to be "exposed" for as little time as possible, we still made fun of them.

I don't know where Guapo's discrimination of the speedo comes from, but he probably has even stronger feelings against than I do. So, we don't buy them for our boys.

When Juan Carlos started his lesson though, I was sure they were going to force me to buy one since, of course, that's what everyone else wears. I can deal with a dress code in a class type situation, so I bought him one and presented it to him. He was not happy but agreed to wear it under his regular trunks. It has yet to see the light of day. His teacher asked me why he doesn't have one after his last class; I showed him that he was, in fact, wearing the "sunga" but that he felt uncomfortable wearing only the "sunga". He was cool with that.

I sent Pedro in his swimmer diaper and his little trunks; I certainly wasn't going to waste the money buying him a "sunga". He's 18 months for crying out loud, it's not like he's going to be competing anytime soon. I went to his first class and there was no problem. (I should mention, though, that his teacher and I did not hit it off. She's one of those young women that has no children, but yet, somehow feels that knows everything there is to know about them-especially my kid. Irritating.)

Vanessa took him to his second lesson (not because I'm lazy folks, but because I was helping out at the school) and when she came home she informed me that the teacher wants me to buy him a "sunga" because HE IS TOO HEAVY IN THE WATER FOR HER TO WORK WITH HIM WITH HIS TRUNKS ON. Does she think I'm stupid? Too heavy? My 18 month old that weighs under 25 pounds? In the water? Puh-lease woman!

(shaking my head and sighing in annoyance)

Deciding that this was not a battle worth fighting, I bought Pedro the stupid "sunga". Here he is with it:






At least he likes it more that Juan Carlos does. (As long as it's on his head, I won't mock him too much!)