Cancer Survivor, writing about Health and Fitness as you age

My husband recently showed me an article about swimming in the Wall Street Journal .  The article references a report that shows "70% of African-American children and 58% of Hispanic children have little or no swimming ability, compared with 40% of Caucasian children."  The article says that the biggest barrier to learning to swim is not resources, but parents' fear of water. Whether the parent is afraid of the water, or whether they are fearful that their children may drown so they keep them away from the water, it would seem to me to be the exact reason to ensure your child can swim.  How? Why would a parent choose to saddle their children with their own fears?  It is quite incomprehensible to me.  (Although I am sure I do it in other things.) I could not swim as a child and I remember having to stay in the shallow end of the pool while friends and family were frolicking in the deep. I felt isolated and left out until I dreaded going to th...