Swimming Upstream is an autobiographical story of an outstanding young Olympic level swimmer in Brisbane, Australia in the 1950’s. Tony Fingleton, the son of working class parents, Harold and Dora Fingleton, is an aspiring swimming star attending a private Catholic school on a scholarship. The story of Tony’s development takes place in a milieu of working class struggle, entrenched gender roles of socially accepted male alcoholism balanced by maternal nurturance, unemployment and ambition, narcissism, sibling rivalry, and resilience under stress. This Media Theatre illustrates developmental issues surrounding concerns of resiliency in the face of ambivalent parental messages towards high achievement in sports and academics in the context of verbal and physical abuse in a substance abusing parent.