I can’t say I was necessarily “taught” how to swim.

It was circa the mid-’90s when life took me out west to California. Not yet a kindergartner, I was thrown into the deep end of the swimming pool in my backyard with my other siblings. We were told to keep our heads above water as I tried to rapidly adjust to not being able to freely breathe.

I’ve never forgotten that day or how to swim. I also never had to turn down a pool party, a vacation, tubing or any other water activity.

As a mother to a now 1-year-old, I want the same for him. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that teaching him how to swim is about more than safety and social factors.

I never want my son to be synonymous with the false stereotype that Black people can’t swim or inherently don’t like water. The stereotype recklessly disregards the history of Black people and swimming pools in this country. How in many cases it wasn’t that Black people couldn’t swim, but that they weren’t permitted in many spaces where they could have learned how to.

Even when segregation ended, privatized swimming pools further divided races because of egregious pricing to use those facilities. Many people, not just Black people, do not have the privilege of having a pool in their backyard. All of this combined is a reality that’s cycled through generations of Black people.

More than a third of Black adults reported that they don’t know how to swim, according to Center for Disease Control and Prevention statistics.

My mom didn’t know how to swim, and we had an eight-foot-deep pool in our backyard. But that doesn’t mean the stereotype can’t be debunked over and over again.

“The best way to combat stereotypes is to find access for people to learn how to swim,” said Karsonya “Kaye” Wise Whitehead, who was adamant about getting swimming lessons for her sons when they were young. The professor of communications and African and African American studies at Loyola University Maryland also took lessons as an adult.

Whitehead added that there isn’t a lot of representation in competitive swimming, nor enough stories about Black families — especially those who live close to the water and make swimming a natural part of their lifestyle.

In Baltimore County, Marvin Thorpe Sr. started a swim school, 4M Swim Club, in his backyard over 50 years ago after his son fell into their pool and didn’t know how to swim. The school, which is now run by Marvin Thorpe II, has taught more than 20,000 students, many of whom were Black, how to swim, according to Thorpe II. The swim club also has competitive swim teams.

“Swimming is a life skill, a survival skill. If you can’t do it, it’s not like playing basketball or football or kickball or something like that,” Thorpe II said. “If you can’t swim, your life, that’s on the line.”

There are at least 11 drownings every day in the U.S., and it’s the leading cause of death among children ages 1-4, according to the CDC. Toddlers have drowned at family outings, and so have teens trying to help each other out of natural waters.

I started putting my son in the pool with me when he was about 11 months old. It’s a time for us to slow down, enjoy each other’s company and be unbothered by anyone or anything else that’s not floating with us.

Someday he won’t need me to hold onto in the shallow or deep end. He’ll find ways to splash me with his cannonballs, or try to impress me with how long he can hold his breath underwater.

I recently placed the back of his curly head on my shoulder and guided him belly-up through the pool at the Middle Branch Recreation Center in Cherry Hill. He didn’t cry or flounder. He looked at peace as he stared down at the neon orange octopus and red seahorse toys in his hands.

I won’t be there every time someone tries to fit my son into an ugly stereotype or when he comes face-to-face with every pool, river or ocean in his future. But I’ll have a tremendous peace of mind knowing I did everything on my end to make sure he’s prepared for waves of water and ignorance.