Both parent and swimmer need to be willing to put a lot of time and money into having success. And, unlike a sport like football or basketball, you spend long waits for maybe two minutes of action. After a while, unless you are really invested and/or really good, it is hard to get up for meets anymore. Since your success is entirely individual for the most part, if you plateau, it is like having a 9 game losing streak in football.

I also have found that swimming, for whatever reason, tends to attract weirdos and creeps. I only did cross country and swimming in high school, so I cannot speak for all sports, but many of my swim teammates were promiscuous creeps. (XC is like being on the chess team, lots of nerdy types for the most part).

But I knew a number of both boys and girls who swam and were just absolute weirdos. I think that all sports tend to have some aspect of this of course. But swimming was especially bad in my high school. Weirdos with belly button piercings (men), nipple, and tongue piercings. Neck tats (as high schoolers mind you). Sexual perverts. Women who would not shave anything. Yadda yadda yadda. Weirdos.