JOIE D’EVE
Growth Experiences Watching from the sidelines By Eve Crawford Peyton
I’ve written before about
whether you can let your kids quit something. I still don’t have a firm stance on it, to be perfectly frank. I let Georgia quit both ballet and cheerleading – she wasn’t enjoying them – but made her stick it out as Tinker Bell No. 1 in Southern Rep Camp’s Peter Pan this summer despite her stage fright. (And she rocked it, obviously.) Georgia is my sweet tiny baby pumpkin face, though, and I probably let her get away with too much. I obviously make her do things she doesn’t want to do – all she ever really wants to do is watch weird kids’ shows on Netflix while eating Nutella by the spoonful – but in terms of extracurricular activities, I just couldn’t bring myself to force her to continue conscripted pliés. With Ruby, it’s been a different process and one that I, as a mom, find pretty exciting because it’s all part of watching her discover her talents and passions. Her first
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instinct was to rush headlong into everything: soccer, volleyball, softball, basketball, lacrosse, cheerleading, drama, choir, speech and debate. I’ve supported her in all of this, sat on uncomfortable bleachers in unfamiliar gyms trying to follow what was going on and clapping when everyone else clapped, bought costumes and uniforms and sports equipment that now clutters my attic, cried during her Shakespearian monologues, listen to her sing “The 12 Days of Christmas” until I thought my ears would bleed. But now, she begins the second phase of this process – discerning which of these activities she wants to pursue on a deeper level and which she is going to have to leave by the wayside because of time constraints. As she gets older, the commitment required is greater, and so she simply can’t do all of these things (and realistically, she is clearly better at some than others). She has already abandoned soccer and lacrosse
and is about to make the difficult anxious and risk-averse and choice to give up volleyball in nonconfrontational, we have to order to focus on cheerleading sleep with our feet uncovered. One and the school play and – the new of the things I love about Ruby arrival on her radar – roller derby. is how different from me she is. It’s hard for me to know whether She’s an extrovert who loves sports my role should be to encourage and public speaking and parades her to make her own choices or and parties and crowds. Another to guide her toward the major difference, and things I feel she’s better this is a very good at. Well, no, that’s not Excerpted from Eve thing, is that Ruby is true. I know my job as a Crawford Peyton’s far more comfortable blog, Joie d’Eve, which parent is to let her make appears each Friday on with failure than I her own decisions; it’s MyNewOrleans.com ever was or ever will just hard for me to stick be. She is a risk-taker to that. If she wants to commit who is willing to be bad at someherself to basketball, even if I thing until she gets good at it. feel like she’s better at speech I love watching her grow. I love and debate, that can’t be my call, watching them both grow. but it’s hard for me to watch her Seeing them unfold as the struggle instead of succeed. (And people they are is the greatest there is a point at which you have privilege; sitting on my hands to be as honest with your child as during that process is the greatest you can about his or her actual challenge. skillset.) Although Georgia really is an One of the things I love about expert at eating Nutella. Georgia is how much like me she is. We’re introverts who prefer to stay home, we love carbs, we’re
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jane sanders illustration