Vivian loves to dance. A few times a week, we waltz around the kitchen, jive in the entry, or crazy dance in the living room.
She used to wish desperately that we’d sign her up for dance classes; now, she’s stopped asking. I know there are a zillion benefits to dance, from coordination to confidence, but I can’t deal with it. It is outside my comfort realm.
I don’t do hair. And I don’t do buns. And I don’t want to spend my free time watching YouTube videos to figure out how to do a hairstyle she has to wear. I also don’t do makeup on kids. It’s hard enough growing up to love yourself when what you need to look like isn’t prescribed. Plus, I know what her gene pool is: formal dance isn’t in the picture, though soccer and basketball are.
And, to be honest, something about it seems vaguely sexist.
One afternoon, Vivian wanted me to buy her special dance clothes, the tutu, the tights, the lycra. I refused. She begged. She had just finished a recital at home for us.
Then I said this:
I don’t remember how Vivian responded. Most likely she did another pirouette flop. My husband, however, dropped the knife he was using to slice cheese.
Excellent. I have a double major in English and Women’s Studies. I regularly rant on the problem of sexualizing young girls, from bare midriffs and words-on-bums to wedge heels. And now, I’ve just told my daughter she can dance without clothes.
Mommy needs a time out.
Ha ha!! That’s hilarious!!! Thank goodness they don’t understand those things yet.
That’s so true.
Sign her up for a hip-hop class – or breakdancing. All you need are some oversized trousers, kneepads and a baseball cap. Nary a ballerina bun, bobby pin or blush brush to be seen. 🙂
I’ll get right on that. After I moonwalk like MJ. 😉
We are in our last few weeks of ballet hell. We won’t be repeating it. I signed up my kindergartner because she was interested and I thought it would do all those things you mentioned, help with poise, etc. She fell down 4 times on our last neighborhood jaunt. Also, I don’t do buns either. I do do mangled ponytails with hair pins popping out.
I love that you advise a career in stripping. Well done. 🙂 Don’t you wish it were the last misspeak you’d have as a parent? I’ve got a shit-ton of sage, misspoken advice to sort out.
First of all, “Ninja Mom” is the coolest name ever.
Second, I love your term “ballet hell.” I just did a quick search for that precise phrase and 4750 hits popped up. And that is my unsophisticated approach to stats.
Your “career in stripping” phrase also has me laughing. 🙂
I went through a phase where I called plain foods (a cheeseburger minus ketchup and mustard) naked. I would say I like a naked pizza (cheese pizza). Well I quickly stopped when a friends mom was eating a grapefruit without sugar. I said, “do you always eat your grape fruit naked?” She paused and then everyone laughed at me.
I might have to try that.
And yes, I’m referring to eating grapefruit without sugar.
WOW! I have alot of things running through my head right now but Rebecca would beat me senseless lol. I hope you have good support system for when you offspring get to high schoo 😉
I’m sending them to you and Reba when they’re teens.
I agree with Vicki, lots of kids enjoy hip hop and modern dance. I too think that ballet is horrid how they want the girls to all look the same, thin, hair up(what if you like short hair)makeup etc. Love reading about your life with children, trust me as they get older the comments will get crazier.
Keep up the good work.
Thanks, Judy. Do you think my Freudian slips will get worse too?
Have you considered tap dancing? As one who has taken tap dancing as an adult and am surrounded by 6, 7 and 8 year olds (it’s hard to find a tap dance class for adults, ok?), I can assure you that the only requisite is a ponytail, assuming you have long hair. Ponytails are easy. No tutus, you can wear clothes you’d wear for working out such as leggings, shorts, and t-shirt. The only thing you do need: tap shoes, but you need these whatever your sex is. Just a thought.
I love that you’re taking tap dancing.
My rule about extracurricular activities (which I formulated two minutes ago) is not to put them in anything I can’t stand listening to for an hour or two.
Now I need to reconsider music. Or buy more earplugs.
I am like you, very cautious about the sexualization of my daughter. My daughter has taken dance for 7 years – tap, ballet, jazz – and not once has she worn anything baring her midriff or bare legs. And the hairstyles have always been simple – ponytail or bun. Plus, they are not encouraged to wear makeup, only what is needed to prevent stage washout. Her dance studio is great, encouraging wellness and confidence. I feel blessed. Dancing is her passion.
Your studio sounds fab!
You lost me at saying a bun is “simple.” When you meet me, look at my hands. I barely have opposable thumbs. Sigh.
Way to go, IM! I hope you giggled your way through a time out.
When I was Vivian’s age, I desperately wanted to be a ballerina. I would flit around the room while watching Nutcracker, imaging how beautiful I would be in a floaty tutu. Let’s face it, for me it was mainly about the tutu (too). I think that’s why I ended up in an organza ballgown on my wedding day. 10 years later and I still don’t regret that decision.
I love that you had the ballgown on my wedding day. When I shopped for a dress, one of my main requirements was that when I took it off, it’d fall flat on the gown. I told sales attendants I didn’t want a gown that stood up by itself. Still, I love seeing big ballgowns.
Technically, your statement is very accurate. I’ve heard there are some people who dance without any clothes on.
There are some nasty rumours (that’s “rumors” for you).
Okay – confession?
When I first read your white board, I was thinking: YES! GOOD FOR YOU! CLOTHES DON’T MAKE THE MAN! (or woman, as it were, in this case.)
I completely missed the pole dancing implications until your husband dropped the knife.
And I was like, “What? Why did he do that? …….oh.”
Hahahahahahahaha! Love it.
p.s. I did dance for one year with my daughter when she was in kindergarten. It was just…no. Just no.
Laughing.
My other consideration (re: no dance for V) is that she is psycho competitive. I’d sooner have in something that isn’t judged, but scored. Maybe I’m the stupid one. It’s entirely possible. Oh well, she can tell her therapist that in a decade.
Don’t feel bad, Julie…I missed the significance of Leanne’s husband dropping the knife too, until I read your comment! I thought she was implying that the “coordination gene” was lacking…sigh…
I felt the same way, Leanne, about cheerleading…luckily, the coach and the volunteer moms do the hair (Jim does the girls’ hair in our family, not me!). I have learned over the years that cheerleading is a sport, and requires endurance, skill and coordination (and some of the teams here have boys on them too).
My niece has been in dance since she was three (she’s almost 17 now and still loves it), and I haven’t seen any obvious detrimental effects from it (I’m more worried about the fact that my brother didn’t enroll her in French Immersion – they live 45 minutes from Ottawa!).
If Vivian loves to dance, why not let her try it for a little while?
Wendy
P.S. Enjoy dancing with her when she’s little, when she’s bigger, she won’t appreciate your dancing!
I agree, Wendy – dance and cheerleading are sports. But, I still don’t see her in it. Thankfully, she seems to have lost interest — but thankfully she has not lost interest in dancing with me, two crazy women letting loose in the kitchen.
I am kind of jealous that yoru daughter wants clothes to dance in. My 3 year old daughter would rather dance in her underwear…
I am doomed.
You’re likely not completely doomed….unless she takes her underwear gig to the mall. 😉
funny 🙂 I too agree that emphasis on sending girls for dance lessons is very sexist. Glad, I am not the only one!
🙂
I get the concern of over some of the ‘requirements’ of ballet – but – if your kid loves to move to music, encourage it any way you can. One of the biggest regrets in this last leg of my life is that I never learned to dance with abandon, for the sheer joy of it. All of the above suggestions are great ones – any kind of dance will do. There’s an in-tuneness between body and spirit in those who dance that I really envy and if your girl has a natural bent that way – have at it, for her sake. Clothes or not. :>)
LOL at “Clothes or not.”
I hear you. I have learned (or unlearned?) to dance with wild abandon. And you describe it beautifully: an “in-tuneness between body and spirit.” I couldn’t get there until I hit 30 and believed in my body. I think sports can teach that body confidence too. (At least, that’s what I keep telling myself).
Off to dance like a crazy woman, once again.
To me, it is the cost added into the push. You “must” send your daughter to dance class for a billion dollars a year. Whatever!!! My word is no.
And the cost to “attend” the recital. That seems criminal. Dancing in the kitchen is cheaper.
Awesomely funny!
I appreciate your fight for modesty and true beauty. You’re right, it’s hard enough for females to accept themselves as beautiful without being told they have to be a certain way to fit in.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Kim, for commenting. The struggle to raise confident, empathetic people continues.
I love dance. LOVED it.
I hated ballet. The two are completely separate things.
I say (if you’re up for the expensive classes and costumes) find a good school and let her go. Just avoid ballet unless she really really wants that specific type.
I took 10 years of dance, and developed no feelings of “I must wear make-up and have perfect hair.” Outside of professional photos, recitals, and theatre shows, I never wear any. As one who has never participated in dance classes, you only see the photos where the make up is on (and thick).
Instead, I developed feelings that make-up was only for “show”.
Let her try. She could be a natural. She could hate it. Let her decide.
Your quote? Hilarious. I got it right away, because my mind is just dirty like that. 🙂
Of course you got the joke. 😉
Well, truth is, we’re not ready to take on another activity. By “we” I mean “me.” Music plus soccer (or swimming) is as much as I can handle (not to say my cheque book – that’s checkbook for you).
I think tomorrow we’ll just have to take our dancing outside. You know, jazz it up, a bit. Want to join us from Texas?
I am DYING with laughter over here. Yes, it’s inappropriate, but whatevvvah.
I wanted to be a ballerina, too. My Mum refused to buy me a pink tutu and leotard like all the other little girls. Instead, she outfitted me in an itchy red turtleneck and winter tights. No slippers. No tidy bun, either. Instead, my hair sprouted from either side of my four-eyed, buck-toothed head.
Turns out, my sense of movement and grace matched my hair and clothing and the Dance Academy returned my parents’ money and I shelved yet another dashed dream.
Sometimes you gotta be cruel to be kind. Some day, Vivian won’t vividly remember such angst. She certainly won’t post about it on someone’s blog, for all the world to see…
Oh, the blogging thing. This is the document that she’ll bind and give to her therapist.
And hopefully realize that her mom actually loved her a hell of a lot.
Ahh, pass the snark. I inhaled some sap!
That’s what she said.
Ahem.
lol – This is why raising girls is so… TRICKY!
How are you going to deal with the girly-ness when she’s a teen?? =)
I’m hoping she’ll be playing a team sport. Either that or you’ll pick her up to take her skiing.
That, plus another decade will mean I’m wiser, right? (Likely with 20-20 hindsight). Sigh.
My mother was a dancer. As soon as we could walk, my two older sisters and I were enrolled in the ballet school downtown. . . the one above the Bakery. I have exactly three memories of my six years in ballet lessons (I retired at the ripe age of 8). I remember the bakery had really good donuts, I remember not making the cut at the Nutcracker auditions because I was too big for the mouse costumes, and I remember quitting when my sister told me I looked fat in a tutu. Apparently maple bars and ballet don’t mix.
Despite all that, I put my own daughter in ballet as soon as she could walk. Something about pleasing my mother I think. The teacher was a super uptight German woman who hated my daughter . . . something about my daughter’s sarcasm. I made my daughter stick with it until she was old enough to be in the Nutcracker. She auditioned, got a part as a mouse (I sobbed when she got the part), performed, and then quit ballet forever.
Probably not my finest parenting moment . . . but I did buy her a maple bar to celebrate.
I get what you did. And I love how you bought her a maple bar. I hope you got one for yourself, too.
I need to be careful I’m not doing the same with V regarding team sports.
The poet, John Cooper Clarke, writes: “They f— you up, your mom and dad. They may not mean to, but they do.”
Been there too. Am there.
Ha!
I was a ballet dancer for about 16 years and we all know how that turned out. *snort!*
I mean seriously. You have 5 kids. 😉
Funny thing is, I still didn’t get it until your last line. I was actually thinking you were quite profound.
I’ll take profound, TYVM. Another “that’s what she said” moment. Sigh.
ballet – been there done that and realized fairly early that i prefer basketball and soccer. and im sure vivi will too once she gets into it.
Thanks, ES. I actually think she does prefer soccer. Or, maybe I’m just projecting, which is entirely likely.
I hope Mommy gets what she needs soon!
Me too.
Makes me wonder how you answer your kids when they ask for money to buy candy.
“You don’t need money to get candy. You two cause a diversion in that aisle over there, while mommy gets us some candy for free.”
Where did you see us?
Maybe you can clarify with “What I meant was, ‘ You only need a pole.'”
Ha ha ha ha ha.
I crack myself up. 😉
And you crack me up too.
As my husband is wont to say: A father’s number one job is to keep his daughter off the pole.
Sounds like something my sister would say, she’s a skank.
Just kidding, she dances and crap(s).
Hilarious. Unless I was your sister.
Oh lord. This is why I’m glad I have a boy. I live in terror of that day, if I have a girl that I have to do the whole tutu thing. Blech. Girls should play soccer… or field hockey and lacrosse if they want to wear a skirt while they do it 🙂
Well, Vivian’s survived having a tomboy mom. So far. She’s not in therapy.
Yet.
When my girls were much younger we liked dancing to Jive Bunny & the Mastermix in the living room when the sun was pouring into our very cold base housing in Cold Lake. It was fun, great exercise & kept us warm … that’s all I got. LOL
And that’s plenty. Dancing in a sunbeam with people you love; it doesn’t get much better than that.
Funny stuff! I don’t know how it is in Maple Leaf Land, but unless your neighborhood is industrial or zoned for Gentlemen’s Clubs… I don’t think you’ll have anything to worry about. Plus you have the hubby on high alert now. 🙂