I cannot stand watching my child do dance /shows !

Come and watch our show they cry as your heart hits your boots.
I know exactly what you are talking about.
And it's excruciating.

Does she have any opportunities to do this as a hobby? Dance classes? Singing? Playing an instrument? School shows? I’d harness the enthusiasm.

Appalling

How do you think people got into stage schools? And as it happens of the (many) young people I know now working professionally in the arts only a minority attended stage schools.

I hate imaginary play with a passion

I’m not wingheing. I’m t(e one being positive. Everyone else is whingeing.
I just think the disdain for the arts and creativity in this country is really sad and not even remotely amusing.

Stage schools...?
Not sure any of the students of Tiny Tappy Toez with Denise (Saturday ballet tap and modern) ever made it to Broadway. Despite my years of support (£12 a ticket, all proceeds go to cover room hire).

We had ALOT of plays and puppet shows - mind numbing

God I’m having flashbacks to DD’s drama shows. The older kids pieces were quite entertaining but good grief, watching 4/5 year olds “act” for what seemed like hours was torture. At least dancing can be quite cute but dramatic performances are just soul destroying at that age.

When I was a kids if I got bored I would make my mum watch me do a dance. I made them up on the spot so they were awful and had no ending planned so they would drag on for an eternity. Once I did a dance interpretation of an episode of Neighbours. I feel bad for her now, I always chose to do them when she was busy doing housework or something.

I agree - it’s great watching your child and utterly boring watching the rest. At DC school
parents think nothing of getting up and leaving after their child has performed, even in a theatre where you had to pay for tickets.

Ds does rugby.

My feet were turning numb last week 😂

I was always desperately relieved my DS wasn't into football (or rugby tbf) and have me standing at the side of the pitch in the freezing cold for however long.

Mind you he did play a brass instrument and we went to the group lessons and also concerts and that wasn't bad, except for the show in the theatre which had a group of kids from some primary school playing ukuleles. Now their performance went on way too long centuries

We can look back and laugh now

Do you appreciate comedy?

I know that sounds a bit arsey but it’s clearly meant to be a funny thread and it’s just been taken over by your whingeing.

I have to watch mine every sat night with a newly choreographed song. I’m just grateful she can do it-her life looked bleak when she was a baby and no one expected her to be walking and talking.

My granddaughters had a four hour dance recital once I told their mom I couldn’t go anymore

How utterly depressing this thread is. This is part of parenting. Get over yourselves.

I am so glad those days are over for me. I liked seeing my own kids in concerts. But the ‘ jazz improv’ sections lasted forever. I will never get those hours back.

Some rather po-faced replies here. I love the theatre and concerts as an adult. Watching a bunch of kids perform for hours? Not so much!

Great post. Totally agree.

Plus my dad got his own back today… we’ve said that we’ll enter one creative writing competition each month in 2026 (the same one). He’s submitted his and sent me a copy - it’s all about his dating life after my mam and him split up (remarried to one another now - don’t ask!) There’s cringe and then there’s CRINGE!

Obviously I have said that it’s a really fascinating take on middle-aged dating and probably not something anyone else will submit.

I now need to bleach my eyeballs and once recovered need to write my own which needs to be in before midnight…

Those of you who are being a teensy bit pious about the need to foster creativity, you do realise that every mum on this thread will be cherishing and supporting their children's endeavours?

It's just that children (quite naturally, quite healthily) can be endlessly egotistical, endlessly fantasising, and endlessly confident of their entitlement to praise and adoration from their parents.

That's fine, of course (up to a point). It's our job to encourage them. But it is also completely fine to feel slightly (and secretly) nauseated by their naive self-absorption, and to want to say (with Austen's Mr Bennett) You have delighted us all quite long enough.

When I was a kid I wrote a screenplay at my dad’s house. He was married to this (genuinely horrible) woman and in the first scene she fell down the stairs and died, haunting the house and terrorising the children. My blatant self insert character came in and did an exorcism and trapped her soul in the toilet. When I went home to my mum she wasn’t super excited to read another one of my badly written plays, but she loved this one. 90% of the plays/dances/short stories my kids write aren’t great but occasionally they will come out with something really funny. I love it when they try and play me and put on awful English accents.

Oh I love going to swim meets.

If a club meet I TM but ds is a para swimmer so I have to hold him on the blocks too - so get a good view of all the racing! If national meets I spend my time trying to hide from the you tube camera 🤣

I also live the social side - can talk to other parents at swim meets whereas at a show there is silence!!!

I love watching my dcs do shows, both the living room shows and the bigger school productions.

Dh and I always reference the competitive Dad from the Fast show during kids performances. It makes me chuckle every time.