'Why isn't my child Mary' syndrome

[Pud2]

AIBU to get irritated by parents who complain to the school when their DC doesn't get a good part in a production?

I remember one of my friends was given the part of a soldier towards the end of primary school. The soldiers were dressed like the ones outside Buckingham Palace and she was tall and slim so she would have looked good. But her mum kicked off big time about her playing a man. And she ended up the back half of a donkey.

Our school did a fab thing last year: y6 has talent! Every single child did something. A little rock band, one boy talked about fishing, a girl hulahooped, there was a little magic show, a dance, a little play some girls had written themselves.

Even the shy children, the quiet and the autistic children did something. It was really fab. Much better than a school play.

Suggest it to your schools!

I once played an angel and had to wear this white sheet costume with tinsel around around my head and neck. This was when I discovered that I am allergic to tinsel!

I was demoted to the ranks of Orator and never hit the dizzy heights of costumed and scripted parts ever again......

FFF

At the DC's school, Reception dance, Y1 sing and Y2 have the speaking roles and everyone gets at least a line to say.

I was half a worm in a school play once

I was understudy to a donkey. Not even the fucking donkey, FFS. Just the understudy.

I have missed you, lovely. Couldn't bear the lack of twig banter n pebbly shit sarcasm any more.

At my DDs' school, the nativity was done by the reception children, who acted out the play, and each child had one line to say. So Mary didn't have any more to say than Third Camel.

Everyone wanted to be The Star, because that had the best costume. (DD1 was Mary, DD2 was an angel. I was not on the PTA at the time.)

DD, aged 3, came out of playgroup with a cat's-bum face because she was not chosen as mary. Was very cross indeed. Come the performance, mary took fright and refused to climb onto the stage. 'Never mind', said playgroup leader, 'who has been watching carefully and knows what to do?' Up steps DD and played the part perfectly. 'Told you she should have picked me....'
Just as well, DD never had another part in a play in her entire school career, she was always providing music.

Yup, say it as it is to children, in a loving way. They need to learn that everyone has strengths and weaknesses and that we can't all win at everything. Shouting at the teacher, and crying, isn't really the way to teach them to accept disappointment!

My DS was Joseph and couldn't understand why, when there was a boy in his class who's name actually was Joseph.

My DN was the handsome Prince in Snow White and was disgusted he wasn't one of the dwarfs.

I don't think kids think about these things in the same way as adults

How unreasonable, surely that's the first consideration? DD1 has a Samsung, she's v pleased with it.

My friends son went to a separate infant and junior school as did his whole class. At the end of y2 and in the first year of the juniors they did a nativity. Same Mary both times!

Silly men.

I thought of you as I wallpapered my dining room chimney breast, feature wall alert.

When ds was in reception, he was chosen to play Joseph. First I heard about it was from other parents, who all remarked on it/asked me in a sniffy 'why has YOUR son been singled out' way. I was bemused as I knew nothing about it. And these were people who were normally pleasant. Hadn't realised there was such competitiveness.

However, I do have to admit I am still slightly pissed off that I was always passed over in primary school - every year it was the same blonde, blue-eyed girl who got to be Mary. I got to be a star. Or a narrator. Or, one particularly crap year, I got to play the sodding glockenspiel.

Thing is, this girl was really dim. We were at a church school. We had assembly every day, grace at meals, prayers at hometime. She was Mary every year. Yet in the middle of a lesson once, she called across the classroom 'edam, where was Jesus born?'.

I do hope she grew up to marry a nice chap who worked in a bank or something and kept a nice home for him, as was the intended destination of nice little blonde blue-eyed girls in the 1970s. Because i doubt she grew up to be a particle physicist. (Not that I'm still slightly jealous or anything...)

I went to a church school. I'm blonde, scatty, and was always Mary.

Seems to be a lot of jealousy and hate towards girls with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Seems a bit ironic really, when on another thread recently, people were saying it was wrong that there's so much hate towards people with red hair and freckles!

(But it's okay to constantly criticize blondes?)

Seems like double standards.

I'm just making an observation - I'm not 'personally offended' as is the MN way (I've had a glass of vino and ish quite mellow :)), so couldn't be angry/offended tonight if I tried.

Let it go, edam, let it go.

Stratters

Limited, I would have done, it was the yelling across the room 'where was Jesus born' from little miss always mary that made it so excruciating.

Waters, the point is in the 1970s the ideal for girls was blonde hair, blue eyes. Anything else fell short. ALL the Tiny Tears and ALL the Barbies and Sindies were blonde with blue eyes. (Well, my Mother managed to find two dolls with dark brown hair for me, but it wasn't easy, and the message from society at large was very clear that pretty = blonde hair, blue eyes.) All the women who were considered attractive on TV and in films were blonde with blue eyes. Apart from Wonder Woman.

Didn't actually bother me much apart from the parts being handed out at every nativity play (until this thread came up I hadn't thought about it for years) but it was definitely A Thing.