to think that encouraging your daughter to learn ballet is cruel

[morningpaper]

Because BASICALLY, ballet is all about body image and is a money-making racket to boot (silly costumes and unecessary shoes).

There just AREN'T curvy ballerinas. You have to have the perfect body - thin, willowy and in perfect proportion. I well remember when my 11 year-old best mate was rejected from the Royal Ballet School because her 'shoulders were too wide'. She cried for weeks. Ballet had been her life.

Basically, they either get sick of it themselves, or they stop because they realise that their BODIES ARE IMPERFECT. Either way, the time could be better used doing some sort of more useful modern dance that you can learn in £1.99 Asda trainers which isn't dependent on having a perfect body.

Please take your daughters to something more useful instead.

My daughter is 12 and stil attends her Saturday morning church hall dance class. Every year they do a show and there are girls and a few boys of all shapes and sizes performing. She really enjoys it - the physical challenge and learning a skill.

She is strong and slim but the wrong build to go very far. But she loves it and gets so much out of it.

My aunt was a professional ballet dancer with the then Royal Festival Ballet and travelled the world. Sadly her career ended early due to injury.

Aware it's a zombie thread, but, FWIW, I couldn't imagine my childhood now without ballet having been a part of it.

I danced from 3 to 16, then went on to dance school and danced professionally for a couple of years before my hips were injured. I didn't dance ballet as a professional, but my prior training was incredibly important to my development. I was too short and didn't have enough natural hip turn-out to be a ballerina, but, no biggie, I danced in a different style for my job, and I still do ballet for fun and to workout now. I was also always aware that dance would be a short career for me, so I was ready to do a completely unrelated undergrad when I finished: I'm now a school teacher.

It taught me a lot of good lessons as I was growing up, such as perseverance, continuing to work on something until it is good enough, stage presence, how to take constructive criticism, and yes, good posture and poise as well! It helps, since I have to sit at a desk a lot now.

Ballet was, and still continues to be, such a fun part of my life. I've met so many life-long friends, travelled a little bit with dance companies, performed in the Olympic opening ceremony in 2012, and definitely ruined my feet as well! We all say that we can't wear flip flops without some serious preparation first! And I very much enjoy going to watch ballet as often as I can.

(Also another one to do pose-turns and pirouettes on request when drunk. My mates used to enjoy an impromptu nightclub dance class at uni)

If there was a like button Typically, I would like your post! Dd dances because she enjoys it but also because she's known those girls since she was 3 and she loves being with them and dancing with them. They have mostly grown into tall slim teenagers, she hasn't but no one judges her and she is a good dancer!

TypicallyEnglishMustard- I so agree with everything you have said.
my DD started ballet when she was 5, a shy girl who lacked self confidence- she had a speech development problem that held her back at school.

How that little girls had changed. Now 16 ( no speech problems now) she is dancing every day, studying several dance forms, ballet majors and Advanced RAD.
Dance has transformed her- she is still quiet and sensitive but has a robust self esteem, self motivated but a great team worker, much of this is due to ballet. I have watched her perform solo with confidence in front of a thousand people, but the skills she has leaned in dance have enriched her whole life. She can easily stand up in class and give a presentation, she has learned the value of hard work, which she now applies to her studies at school= sailing through her exams because she knows that preparation is a key to success. I have seen her hold her nerve at school exams and conquer any anxieties, because she has learned to do this at dance over many years for countless performances and exams. She is disciplined.
She easily adapts to new situations and loves meeting new people, makes friends easily.
I can see the huge positive impact dance has had on her life.
Last month at school everyone in her class was asked to give a presentation about a personal subject.
The title of my DDs talk was " How Dance has Shaped my Life" she too embraces the life lessons she has learned through dance.

Cruel? I think not.

Some posters seem to take a special dislike to the spectator element:

"I dislike women "doing performance" - whereas other sorts of dance are more about participation and socialisation. I dislike women being things that are looked at and ballet seems to encourage this in a very ghastly way"

"But then i don't agree in general with parading children to be gawped at..."

So any acting is out then. Am-dram straight off the list. (is that both men and women or are men still allowed to present themselves to be seen?)

Also any spectator sports. (or are we seriously going to argue that the World Cup and Wimbledon are simply about participation and socialisation?)

Not sure how we stand with musical performances? Is it ok to be listened to but not looked at?

Not letting girls do ballet because only certain types can make it to top ballet schools or make a career of ballet seems about as sensible as banning little boys from playing football because most haven't got the physique to become professional footballers. Or not letting them have swimming lessons because of the pressures on Olympic swimmers.

Most ordinary ballet schools for young children (of either sex) are about participation and socialisation. The pressures of professional ballet are simply irrelevant, just like the life of a professional gymnast or footballer is not relevant to the little boy (or girl) who joins Tumbletots or fails to score a goal in the house match.

If we are talking about what happens at prestigious ballet schools, then we should be comparing with a similarly prestigious sports setting, not with the school football team or the local swimming baths. In both cases, we are talking of specific settings where future professionals are selected and trained. I am fairly sure that young potential Olympic athletes or aspiring footballers are also judged pretty harshly and discarded if not good enough. Or do you think the first concern of Olympic talent spotters is to be inclusive of all physical abilities?

Otoh my experience suggests that a bog standard ballet school is far less likely to chuck out a clumsy 10yo than e.g. most bog standard football teams for the same age group. My mildly disabled ds was never able to get into any football team, inside or outside school, though he would dearly have loved to join. He was de-selected, if you like, on his body type. The local ballet school were happy to have him, and were always keen to include his more severely disabled sister, even on days when she arrived in a wheelchair. They also included children with fairly severe learning difficulties who could never have made it into a mainstream sports team.

As for the dieting, does anyone really believe that professional athletes get where they are without paying attention to what they eat? But does that mean we should stop our children doing handstands down the park? Or not let them take part in the annual dance show (where the only dietary advice is likely to be "please don't rub chocolate on your costume")?

Dd was not particularly good at ballet. But it sparked a long-lasting interest in theatre and in using your body to tell stories. One result of this, as far as I can see, is that she has been far less interested than most other teens in worrying about her looks or about being conventionally pretty: to her her body is a tool and she is interested in what she can get it to do.