Last Christmas we went to see Peter Pan as a panto and since then the girls have been mithering to be allowed to audition for the dancing troupe for this year. It got significantly worse after the summer school they did at dancing.
Now, i’m in about 8 different minds about this; on one hand, i hankered to do this very thing as a child, but it was never so much as entertained (not academic or worthy enough, likewise dancing). On the other hand, i don’t want to be letting them do everything i didn’t do as some sort of reaction to my childhood (because that seems a tad trite) but then, as they are the ones begging, i suppose it isn’t that.
Then a bit of me has turned into a slight snob who can’t entirely bear the idea of becoming a stage mummy/ pushy mummy – and of course there is the bit of me that cannot frankly be a*sed to ferry people around to rehearsals and cope with chaperoning them (how Fossil girl is that?). This is closely followed by not wanting them to have the disappointment of not getting in (queue of several hundred little girls all waiting to be disappointed or delighted) but that doesn’t seem a very good reason for not letting them try – particularly as i fell very hard at that particular hurdle myself and didn’t audition for Acting Courses at Drama School in case i didn’t get in, so settled for Stage Management instead. But then am i trying to make them learn by my mistakes?
Do i think too much, do you think?
Trickiest of all has fortunately been fixed by a clash of committments; only the elder 2 are old enough to audition and of those two (i won’t write it here for reasons that are probably obvious) one is probably more likely to get in than the other. Luckily the other of those two has an unmissable event on the weekend of the auditions and has decided it is too good to spoil by leaving half way through for only a chance of something else. The other girl is dead set on going.
So i’ll take her, which leads me back to which wall i bang my head against while turning into a stage mummy if she gets in. Or, now i’ve blogged it so she probably won’t get in anyway, how to bolster up a child who gets turned down when doing the thing she thinks shes the best at?
It’s a lark, parenthood, isn’t it. 🙄
pmsl, I have been through a very similar range of thinking with my eldest 😉
Yep your thining too much 🙂
Fossil girl?
Life’s lessons, Merry. Too much bubblewrap suffocates and the experience will be character building either way. It’s why you homeschool isn’t it 🙂
Yes… trouble is, i’m not sure it’s a lesson *I* want to learn 😉
Well I am sure you will cry more than they ever will over their falls and scrapes, but you know that you’d be a proud mummy if she got in.
Life. Can’t live with it. Can’t live without it.
Obviously 😐
RE one child likely to get in more than the other – loads of actors and actresses are like the one you don’t think will. Don’t envy you the decision tho. Erm…. what’s a Fossil girl? – i have a nasty feeling I might be one too:)
The Fossil sisters – Ballet Shoes, Noel Streatfeild.
I think you let her audition – if she gets in, you think “^&*^” and resign yourself to chauffeur duties (oh, and the fun bit of watching her onstage). If she doesn’t, you resign yourself to listening to her planning *next* year 😉 Can’t win basically :-))
I also think you have to let her try. Good Luck!!
You have to let her try if she wants to. We can all come to watch if she gets it!