When our house was only partly full of children and we still had something laughingly called “free time” in our lives, my husband and I took up the piano.
Neither of us had an ounce of training, so we had no illusions of achieving more than the most primitive music making. Still, it was a joy. Vast neglected portions of our brains — where music theory goes — lit up under the unaccustomed stimulus. It seemed incredible that not only had Mozart been kind enough to scribble down short pedagogical pieces, but that we, with our amateur fingers, could actually play them.
Yet, oddly, what struck us most about the experience was the agitated nostalgia we seemed to evoke in other adults.
“Oh, piano!” people would exclaim warmly, with regret, “I used to play the piano! I only wish I’d kept going. …”
It turns out that society is chockablock with grown-ups who were compelled to take piano in childhood, who gave up the hated instrument the minute their parents let them, and who now, decades later, wish they’d stuck with it. It was like stumbling upon a vast, secret society lying just under the surface of ordinary life: The Club of Wistful Quitters.
The moral of this story, therefore, seems self-evident: Parents ought never let their children quit piano (or French horn or soccer or taekwondo or German) because it’s in the child’s best interests to master an art or skill. They’ll thank you later. Right?
But here’s the thing: If you are the parent, and your child is writhing under the expectation that he must pursue some designated pastime, whose long-term happiness is really being served?
Do our children have activities for their sakes, or for ours? Is it wise to demand that they push past their reluctance, stick with the activity, and come out all shiny and accomplished on the other end? Or is it wiser to show respect for children by respecting their likes and dislikes, their tastes and preferences?
Or, to double back and disappear into deeper uncertainty, is it wisest still to respect the grown person they will become by forcing them to overcome their childhood reluctance? There are adults, after all, who persisted with piano lessons and can spring into musical life at any party, to the envy of all CWQ members.
I wish I knew the answer. Recently, while driving a daughter to ballet class I was dismayed to see tears in her eyes. Eventually the truth burst out: She had loved ballet but now she dreaded it. She wanted to quit. Please could she quit? Now?
At a loss, I rummaged through my mental file of reasons why she couldn’t: Because she dances beautifully; because I never got the chance she’s getting; because we’ve already paid the tuition; because it’s better to persist than to quit.
If you were a child, would you be persuaded? Right, well, neither was mine. I wish I knew what to do.
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
