Emma had her first dance recital on Saturday and it was quite the experience. As I alluded to earlier, I was fairly pessimistic about the whole thing. I’d been warned by friends with older kids that it was a lot of effort for a short performance, and just a lot of over-the-top stuff in general.
It turns out that it was. And it wasn’t. Parents were “banned” from the dress rehearsal, but I snuck in anyway. I acquiesced to Emma wearing makeup, and it was fine. The auditorium was poorly air conditioned, but we survived. Emma ate half a bag of goldfish crackers for lunch, and that was fine too. I paid $5 for a single rose with spray glitter on it, but whatever.
And you know what? Emma freaking loved it. She loved her dress, her lipstick, the “real stage,” the whole shebang.
And that’s really all that matters in the end. It was a long day, but also a fun one. And while she’s only 3, and this was just a little kid dance recital, I found myself taking away a much broader lesson about parenting in general.
I could have chosen to skip the dance recital and Emma wouldn’t have known the difference. She was oblivious to the jokes I made with the other moms about the day. But someday she’ll probably want to do other things that aren’t convenient or seem over the top to me, and she WILL notice how I handle it.
That doesn’t mean I have to support her every whim without fail. But after Saturday, I found myself with a renewed sense of purpose to be enthusiastic about and supportive of the things that interest her. And I’m excited to see what those things turn out to be!
I am glad your post ended up being somewhat positive. I was going to write that everything isn’t about you and it being convenient or not. Sorry if that seems rude, but I read a lot of that in your posts. You seem to have issues around time management and things of course like this require planning and timing when it has nothing to do with you. Again not trying to be rude, just an observation I have noticed in your posts every since you had the first one.
Committing 5 hours of our day for a 3-minute performance strikes me as excessive, especially for a 3-year-old, but you might disagree, and that’s fine. She had fun, and I’m very glad she did.
Life with kids is busy. Life without kids is busy. Life in general is busy for me, for you, for everyone. I think it’s unfair to make a judgment about my time management skills based solely on my blog.
I’m glad that she had a good time. Yes, dance recitals are often “over the top,” but in broader sense, it’s Emma’s first real experience working toward a goal. The goal was the dance recital. She had to work hard to learn the dance (albeit 3-minutes long, but for a 3 year-old, that’s pretty long). She had to overcome any fear that she might have. In a sense, she had to work with the other 3 year-olds. It’s almost like a first step toward public speaking. She’s now performed in public and when she has to give that first talk in front a group of people, she knows what it’s like. I think dance recitals are a great confidence builder.
This is a really great perspective, and one that I hadn’t considered.