Dance Mums

Picture taken this weekend

I've never seen myself as a "dance mum". With the equivalent "hockey mom" (in Canada) or "football mum" (when we just arrived in London), the term connotes, for me, a kind of relentless pushing of the child who may or may not be interested in the relevant sport. I was always a proponent of laid-back parenting, and when my daughter said she wanted to take ballet, I assumed this was an opportunity for her to stay an hour after school, giving me a bit more time to write. I also assumed she'd only wanted to go to the ballet lesson because she saw her friends wearing pink and fairy wings (the ballet teacher really knew what she was doing), and that the interest would dissipate once she had to work.

Little did I know, ten years ago, that not only would the interest not dissipate, but dancing would also become her defining feature, the way she expresses herself, and that having an extra hour to write would last for exactly one school year. After that, she was invited to the academy, which meant not only did I not have that extra hour, I had to spend several hours a week in dank churches waiting for her to finish ballet or tap or modern or whatever. I'd bet we have invested thousands of pounds into various shoes, costumes, and competition entry fees on top of the lesson fees.

The amazing teen currently dances an average of eight hours per week and is looking for any opportunity to dance more. She would gladly have given up school to dance, and the only thing holding her back is good common sense and maturity about future options. And last weekend, after a tumultuous year, we went back to competitions. Sitting for hours in the sausage-smelling cafeteria, waiting for the two minutes she would spend on stage, sweaty and delirious with joy, I had to finally accept that I am, indeed, a dance mum.

But I also realised that, like in every community, there are different kinds of dance mums. There are the ones who follow their daughters around, sleeking buns and fussing over makeup. There are those who push their daughters to work harder or are disappointed with them when they do not win. And there are quite a few of us who do all of this--the hours of rehearsals and waiting and driving to random school halls--for these two minutes when your kid is so happy she could burst.