16/11/2020
One to share for your schools
“You start by taking your 3 year old daughter or son to dance class as something to fill an hour of the week and give them an outlet for their energy. They come home from class and continues to dance around the house, wearing a few spare scarves from your closet or last year’s dressing up costume from the dress up box – asking every day there after “do I go to dance today?”
Next thing you know, you’re complaining about hours spent driving back and forth to the studio, the later-than-you’d-like rehearsal (on a school night?!), time sitting and waiting at the studio for class to end when you have a million other places to be. And don’t even get me started on the money – tuition, dance shoes, master classes, pointe shoes, fund raisers, pointe shoes. Did I mention pointe shoes?
You fret and worry that a “normal” childhood is passing them by. There not on the hockey team, she’s not a cheerleader. They are rarely at the dinner table because they have class almost every night of the week. Family vacations are planned around summer workshops.
But before you know it, they have danced their last Nutcracker and for her discarded her last pair of pointe shoes and it’s over all too soon.
When it’s all over, and they left the stage for the last time, will you remember the hours, the money, the worry or the physical toll? My guess is “no”. You will remember the gifts that dance has given them : the ability to prioritize and multi-task, a strong, flexible body, the ability to handle pressure and last minute changes, an appreciation of music not currently heard on Heart Radio. You will be grateful you are sending your daughter or son out into the world with a strong work ethic and a long attention span. You will have a great sense of peace knowing your daughter or son is part of a strong circle of young women and men equally capable of lifting one another up when the road is rough, as they are at celebrating one another’s triumphs.
In the end, you can pat yourself on the back because taking them to that first dance class 15 years ago one of the best parenting decisions you made."