Be anything you want to be, except that

Since confessing your membership in the bad mother club is all the rage, I guess I'll risk the wrath of the perfect parents by admitting my badness.  It's not a harmless and cute "I hide Nutty Bars in my closet" type of confession either.  Okay, I hide Nutty Bars in my closet, but this is more of a "I really and truly feel like a bad mother" kind of admission.  It's the kind of thing that good mothers don't think and those who do, won't admit.  I'm writing it anyway. 

It all starts when you hold your newborn and stare at them endlessly as you say all the right things.  You know they're the right things to say because you have just finished reading every parenting book ever published and you are now an expert.  On everything.  Remember when you soothingly told your baby that they could be anything they want to be?  You promised to make their dreams come true and be proud of whatever they decided to do?  When my daughter began high school and started mumbling about going to an art school after graduation, I found those words of support and encouragement hard to swallow.  I love that my daughter is artistic.  She is also athletic, bright and funny.  I am very proud of her dedication to art.  I just want her to have the education and skills to get a j-o-b. 

When I see my daughter's classmate and teacher honored on page 7 of our community paper for winning an American Vision medal and their trip to New York to accept it, I understand my daughter's dream to make that same walk across Carnegie Hall's stage.  I want that for her.  She deserves to have a happily ever after.  I just wish her dreams were a little safer.  I can't force a smile when she talks about applying to art schools.  I open my big fat mouth and tell her that I want her to go to a liberal arts college to have a more rounded education.  I suggest that when she starts exploring all the things that are out there, she may decide to change her major.  I say it, even though I know voicing those words will make her dig her heels in and become more determined to prove me wrong.  Secretly, I wish she would decide to study graphic design or advertising or anything less painful than trying to be an artist.  She is too amazing and talented to scrape by selling paintings at a starving artists' sale in the meeting room of the local Holiday Inn.  I don't want to be unsupportive.  I want to be over-protective.  No, I don't mean that.  Maybe I do mean that.  I know I am not supposed to think this way.  Good mothers encourage children to dream and reach for the stars.  Bad mothers interfere and tell children what to do.  I don't want to be a bad mother.  Maybe I can just be an okay mother.

 

Comments

[bananas]

The older I get, the more strongly I believe that the very best gift we could ever give our children is the unabashed courage to pursue their passion no matter how scary. We only have one life (at least that I'm aware of)- why spend it settling? Here's the thing- people DO make it painting and writing and singing and even acting. Sure it's just a few people. But it's the people who went for it without hesitation. If you don't go for it, or if you just go for it half-way, then you definitely won't succeed.

Is that your daughter's painting she's standing next to? I think it must be and am absolutely amazed and impressed at her talent. She WILL go places.

[Lynnie]

I remember my parents giving me this talk when I declared I would be a Philosophy Major. My dad said, "Philosophy????? How about....Computer Science!!!" So I thought about it a bit more and became....an Art Major! I think my parents may have cried.

The thing is, though, I did learn a lot of practical skills in my Art degree. Over the course of four years I learned to weld, do woodworking, edit video, design costumes. Although I got into other things afterward (I got my M.A. in Education, now it doesn't matter what my B.A was in-ha!) almost all of my friends who majored in Art still work in the field! Several became artists, two dancers, two own galleries, one makes jewelry. I can't believe it sometimes when I google an old friend and discover they really did "make it" in the field one way or another. An Art Degree is somewhat practical. You just have to think creatively. Which artists tend to do!