When my 8-year-old daughter entered a new school last fall with less music in its curriculum, I signed her up for a girls chorus. She has a beautiful voice and loves to sing; what better outlet than an all-girls chorus, I thought.
Wrong. Before you could sing Do-Re-Mi, the choir directors had sent memos about two separate uniforms that had to be purchased, assigned 17 different pieces of music (half in foreign languages), and arranged five concerts in December alone, not to mention extra rehearsals. What had started as a casual and fun way to keep my grade-schooler singing had been transformed into a nightmare of scheduling and practicing and stressing out.
Unfortunately, this is all too often the case with any children's activity these days. Back in the 196os, when I was an 8-year-old going to lessons, we just weekly practiced our ballet or Scottish dancing (yes, I took both) and performed one low-key recital—wearing homemade costumes and watched mostly by parents—at the end of the year. Not anymore. Now apparently anything worth doing is worth overdoing, kids and family life be damned. The fun slowly leaks out of everything, replaced by the premature need for excellence. All of which is driven by adults with their own ego agendas, of course.
But leave them alone for a few hours, and you'll see what kids really like to do: Put on their own shows. Shortly after dropping out of the overachieving choir, this same 8-year-old had a friend over to play. Three hours later they put on a puppet show of their devising, complete with hand-made paper puppets and officious looking tickets. We parents sat on the bed and watched the show unfold, as two happy grade schoolers giggled their way through their own fun. No uniforms required.
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4 comments:
you have to find a different choir. can they all be like this?
katy told me that she had to nix hockey for cy this year because it was soo time-consuming and expensive--three practices a week, i think she said, all in different places quite far away, and at different and inconvenient times.
it's as though everything has to be done on some sort of professional level rather than a fun level.
so did you keep her in the choir?
I know exactly what you're talking about. I have three kids, 17, 15, and 10. I cannot tell you how many times I wanted to tear my hair out because of scheduling, not to mention the uniforms and costumes that had to be purchased!
I don't know if you attend church, but children's choirs there are usually wonderful and meet just once a week. Or you might think about voice lessons. My daughter had them when she was younger, before her voice changed. Unfortunately, that lovely little voice was completely lost when she hit puberty. Oh, well. We enjoyed it while it lasted!
Laurie is right, I did say that! Being a hockey mom would have required driving to rinks around the metro area three to five nights a week, two or more hours a night, for six months. And spending about in fees alone -- not including equipment, gas and lipstick.
You would make the PERFECT Waldorf parent : ). I'm with ya on this one, babe. One year of ballet and a small walk-on in Nutcracker was enough for this stage mom. Luckily Jae is a baseball freak. So far seems like it's a lot cheaper than hockey. Course he's only six an hasn't made it out of t-ball, so what do I know.
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