I cannot stand watching my child do dance /shows !

[5490t]

Now I know what I put my parents through when I was a kid (which they also agree with ) and how mind numbingly boring it was for them to endure. My 12 year old regularly shows me dances /songs/ shows anything drama she's created with her self/ her siblings god it's so mind numbing to sit and entertain.
I know I'm being unreasonable but nope can't stand that part of parenting anyone else with me ?

I hate modern dance. DD10 LOVES it though. she said to me she looks forward to joining a dance club in year 7 when she starts high school next year and asked if I'd come to watch her in the school performance if she got in. I just looked at her and I told her
"evie i love you, but i am not paying the school to watch 10 other bratty kids flail about when i already see you do it enough at home"

It didnt go down well

I wouldn’t have been arsed about watching them prance around their living rooms as kids either

DS1 has two left feet, so no dancing from him, but we did have to watch him do that dab thing about a gazillion times. ‘Come and see round my Minecraft luxury 200 room villa’ was the dreaded request in our house. Every. Room🤣 With his brother it was always about watching him do stupidly dangerous stunts. All watched with a heady combination of admiration and terror.

I totally understand. My DD played hockey (and still does as an adult), which was many years standing on the sideline of a freezing cold pitch in the gales/rain, wearing all your Woolies, then offering sympathy and a bag of frozen peas whenever she got a bruise after being hit. When she got her license, I only came to the matches when the sun was shinning, absolute bliss!! If that is of any comfort. Good job we love them!

To add insult to injury, dh worked weekends so it was always me, he got to ferry her to swimming, drama etc during the week and sit indoors.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't expect anyone else to love it as much as we do, but she puts her heart and soul into it so no way am I going to be secretly rolling my eyes or praying for it to be over!

I'll bet all these people hating it will remember it so fondly when their kids have grown up and they think back

I really didn’t enjoy the make believe tea parties and picnics. Never let it be known of course, but make believe really wasn’t my thing.

‘This is really sad’.

Your attempted hijacking of an amusing thread and total lack of even a modicum of a sense of humour is really sad.

Myself i think theres too much pressure on parents to pat their kids on the back and kiss their feet for every single thing they do

I just think if the kids like doing dance, gymnastics, sports thats great and you go ahead and do it, but just because im your mum doesnt mean IM going to share the same passion

I had two of these kids. I put them in a theatre school so they have routines to show me now. I have one graceful pro, and one that's a grinning pile of elbows. I love watching them both equally. There's something so purely lovely about them doing their absolute best and getting to cheer them on. Although sometimes when a show song comes on in Morrison's and I'm trying to usher a small enthusiastic flash mob through the aisles it can be a little wearing.

We've been to a load of shows, Eisteddfodau etc. I love to watch children being unapologetically uninhibited. I have no interest in the perfect form, I'm there for the joy of it all. It's glorious.

I never wanted children and when I read things like this I'm glad I never caved in. I find watching children randomly preform and let's pretend tedious too. I just about managed pouring an imaginary cup of tea and pretending to drink it when my niece wanted a tea party and joining in with The Wheels on the Bus would have been worse than a stint in hell.

My niece does love singing, it's like being in a musical when she's around and she practices her dance moves whilst I'm cooking dinner. Luckily she learned early on not to demand "Auntie - look".L

Also I'm glad she wasn't a boy because although I do go to see her in her theatre club shows I wouldn't be watching her playing football or rugby.

Wait till they are improvising on their recorders, then you can truly moan.

(And even that isn't as bad as the U3A recorder group (30+ members) which meets for 2 hour sessions NEXT DOOR. They've been learning Row, Row, Row Your Boat Gently Down The Stream as a round. Oh my goodness..)

DS1 had that very book! I had to limit it to three jokes a day in the end.

You say that but my youngest daughter is an absolute tomboy who LOVES football and rugby, when I used to pick her up from school (she doesn't go anymore) she always wanted to show off her keepy uppies

Karate for my DS - Saturday , Wednesday and some Sundays which was a longer day . Add in the travelling time too .

One of his clubs , parents were expected to sit and watch , it is noisy , you cannot chat to other parents as it distracts the students .

And you get to wash a manky karate suit after !

Oh, for goodness' sake. We know. We watch children's performances.
We enjoy many and paste a smile on our face for some. [Special mention for the S1 percussion group...]

Some of my pupils became music teachers; others became professional musicians. I supported umpteen school performances, both dramatic and musical. I had the pleasure of working in a school where the pipe band were Junior World Champions umpteen times.

As others have said, this is a lighthearted thread. I still think that I deserve a medal for sitting through those percussion group performances...

You should all try having DC and an adult relative who has discovered amateur dramatics in middle age!

Now, in addition to driving all over the county to freeze my arse off watching DS play football and listening to DD play the same songs on the piano over and over for hours, I also have to spend saturday evenings watching a bunch of adults hammimg it up in extremely earnest but slightly shambolic productions of Abigail's Party or The Cherry Orchard.

It is not ‘disdain’ for the arts. Art is wonderful once skill has been honed! Not so much being forced to watch an 8 year old give you an hour personal Taylor Swift concert when you really should be getting dinner on.

I’m sure the most ardent football fan wouldn’t have been enthralled watching a four year old Bukayo Saka hoofing a ball round a park for 90 minutes. A 20-something Saka is a different story.

Not ours but DNephew/nieces!! I enjoy what they do but having to sit through a whole ensemble from every age range,dance style the dance school does, and iften at high ticket costs, no thanks! Glad they are all grown up now!

Ahh my worst is crafts. I am shit at crafts. I don't know how to make or draw anything. I have no craft imagination. I find it really tough to do anything crafty at all.

I recall going to the Dance School show on the day of the Cricket World Cup final, lots of people watching their phones!
One evening many years ago daughter was singing in a concert at her school, it was the very first time my OH, her father, had taken any interest in football, he had to miss the concert because England were in the World Cup semi final!

You are being unreasonable. I am really not a particularly indulgent parent, but I love it when any of my kids show me something they have learned or practiced.

How long does this really take up of your time in practice?

You don't have to share their passion, but are you saying if they said 'look mummy's, done a rubbish cartwheel, fell off the beam and done a sideways roll instead of a forwards roll, but looked so proud of their performance, you would not 'pat them on the back', clapp or tell them well done?

Fucking hell. You sound like the mum with the kid with the high IQ!

So many typo's in my post. My own mother would not be patting on the back for my performance 😂

Quite! My 4yo is really into drawing - she sometimes sits down for a good while and draws fab pictures (for a 4yo) which I genuinely love and shower her with praise and pin them on the walls. Other days I get a pile of rapidly scribbled smiley faces piled up next to me whilst I wash up... I say "ah that's lovely, thank you!" and praise her for concentrating for so long on drawing, but my enthusiasm is massively toned down. I don't know why you wouldn't do the same for other artsy pursuits like dancing..!

aw you should be happy she likes doing it!