My grandkids swim also and I find it obnoxious when young girls write “Eat my bubbles” on their backs.
I grew up swimming competitively. When it was my kids’ turn, I went to the meets and got caught up in the excitement all over again. My son was swimming the 100IM and he and his two team mates blew the fellas on the other team out of the water. As they each cleared their final turns, I started chanting, “SWEEP! SWEEP! SWEEP!!”
After a dozen chants of “SWEEP!” I glanced around and everybody was looking at me, some mad, some in shock.
I was admonished by a couple of team moms... “We don’t do that here. It’s belittling the opponents and it’s rude!”
Wait... huh?
Afterward, my kids, well aware of the idiocy, rolled their eyes and laughed, “Awww, Dad got in trouuuuble...”
“when young girls write “Eat my bubbles” on their backs”
Sounds like the parents are the problem there.
Of all the little league, girls softball and Teeball I helped coach, the teeballer parents were the worst by far. Everybody thinks their kid is gonna be the next major league star in the making. Got so bad one year all the coaches got together and voted to not keep score for the rest of the season. Didn’t matter though, the parents just did it in the stands. God bless ‘em. :)
My kids swim in summer league, and I don’t like the “Eat my bubbles,” either. (I don’t like any of the scribbling on themselves, in fact.) However, that kind of thing is pretty much a universal custom in athletics, so as long as their behavior is considerate, I figure this is just an environment where my standards don’t apply.
When my oldest boy was on the team, we’d do wolf howls whenever he got up to swim, a private joke based on “Werewolves of London.” That would always confuse the other team!