Marla called me last night. I had given her daughter and husband some
coaching sessions before they auditioned for the community theater production this
year. Darling Daughter is a natural
performer – charisma for days. Hubby, on
the other hand, is a bit shy. He also happens
to have this tenor voice that a lot of guys would trade their fantasy football team
for and hasn’t really used it since college.
Happy in his practice and with his family. He did notice, though, that his daughter was
at the age where she might soon be embarrassed to be seen with him, so he
decided to audition for the play with her.
If they both got cast it would be a Shared Experience (we parents look
for those) and might be fun.
Marla, being one of the more
considerate people I’ll ever meet, called to tell me that both daughter and
hubby were cast in the show. She also
shared that she has volunteered to do make-up and that her son will be working
the concession stand. So this show,
anyway, will be quite the family affair.
Boy-oh-boy. The things you learn when you’re a
parent.
When I was
childless I knew a lot about parenting. Really. Drop of a hat, I had an opinion on the things
parents do wrong.
Now, of
course, having a child my own self, I do all the wrong things. All the time. I’m
always open to advice and I know I’ve Grown As A Person. Still trying to learn,
though, and I know there’s a big one I still struggle with. This principle is neatly
summed up by a magnet we happen to have on our refrigerator. It says:
If Mamma ain’t happy, nobody happy!
As hard as
that is to choke down, I know in my bones it’s the truth. So I’m working on making myself happy, and
trying to figure out what that looks like.
I know it doesn’t look like
being a Mom Slave – driving my kid to a million events and classes, letting her
treat her home like a hotel, and always putting her needs before mine.
So I’m
loving Marla for waving this example in my face. Susie, a wise and gifted student of mine, demonstrated
the same principle (for the first time) years ago. She was in a play with her daughter. She’s been in plays with her children since
then and recently had a public art show with her dad and daughter.
How cool is that?
And that,
ladies and gentlemen, is one of the many reasons we love the arts. The arts are blind to enjoyment based on age
(unlike, say, skateboarding). You can
feed your own soul while sharing a terrific experience with your
offspring. Or, your dad or friend or
whomever. The arts let us connect
through doing together, and in that process of doing there will be laughter and
struggles and freak-outs and elation.
You’ll screw up and move on. (Which,
by the way, is the way human beings learn.)
But mostly you’ll be together doing something really fun – something that
is expansive and forces you to reach beyond yourself. You’ll do that and your kids will see you do
that. There may be gifts as valuable that you can give them, but
there is no gift more valuable.
Yup. Mamma can be happy, family can be happy,
everybody wins.
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