"I'm failing in my duty as a middle class parent by not making DC play an instrument"

[ToothSmush]

This is what a friend said to me (in jest, but it has hit a nerve), when I said that the DC don't get any music lessons.

AIBU to not force the DC into playing an instrument?

This friend has different DC playing flute, guitar, drums etc and expressed suprise when I said I was being led by my DC. They haven't shown much interest in music but are mad keen on football so that is their main extra curricular activity.

Is it true that most middle class parents gently force their DC to play an instrument because of all the social advantages it brings?

Part of this is because I was forced to play the piano as a child, only doing grades - and hated having to play the same classical pieces for months at a time. I gave up as a teen, but ironically I have rediscovered the joy of the piano in middle age and now love trying to play music that I l actually like! I can only do this because I learnt the basics as a child.

So maybe I'm doing the DC a disservice by not forcing them?

DD has a sporadic attitude to choir rehearsals and definitely needs to be able to sight sing, or she'd be out on her ear.

What I would say is that plenty of people take up a musical instrument or singing in adulthood and get loads of enjoyment from it. It's not the case that yiu have one chance to ever play an instrument... you have your whole life.

I play an instrument and my kids don’t and I feel like I’ve failed them abit. But I also think it’s something you can pick up later in life. I didn’t start till my teens and play for fun/at parties/camping etc. Music lessons feel a bit like swimming lessons- there is a huge normalisation of sending your kids to swimming lessons for years and years but my kids just learn how to swim by mucking about in a pool with me

DDs chapel choir only rehearse on the morning of the service. They receive the music on a Friday and off they go on the Sunday. Only once a month though.

Yes.
And yes.

He hated golf and didn't like tennis.
He's a good lad and I'm proud of him! He knows that's good and what's shite.