PARENTAL ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER

I have P.A.D.D.  

AKA: "Parental Attention Deficit Disorder" 

This syndrome is most apparent at recitals. 

Now, I am our girls’ biggest fan. A ’Stan’ even. I will come out with bells on for anything they do, even if it is (as it was for a few middle school years) them playing actual bells. But sitting for hours in uncomfortable folding chairs and listening to other people’s children butcher "The Saints Go Marching In” is a hard sell for me.  It is not that I don’t believe in the importance of the arts - something I not only encouraged but made a mandatory part of the girls’ over-scheduled schedules. It’s more that I think extending “Look at ME Mommy!” enthusiasm to the toddler community writ large is a step too far. It's hard enough to fake it when it was my own kid is playing the recorder.[1] There is a big difference between wanting your kids to learn the recorder and wanting to hear them play it. There is an even bigger difference between wanting to hear someone else’s kid (attempt to) do so. 

Even if your kid is the next Mozart, I am not the ideal audience. My attitude as an adult attendee may have been tainted by my less than successful performative attempts as a child. My piano “career” was undermined from the outset by my teacher - who rapped my wrists every time they failed to properly imitate Cousin ITT from the Addams family. She also has a metronome addiction which didn't vibe with my deeply rooted aversion to repetitive sounds. This, combined with having to share the bench with her static-y butt-length hair, made me a decidedly poor (and super grossed out) music student. I never made it far enough to warrant a public demonstration of my keyboard skills. 

I did participate in one pageant during a short-lived foray into the world of figure skating. I can remember being perplexed as to why so much time, energy and expense was being sunk into this “extravaganza” (correction: EXTRAVAGANZA!!!!). Backstage was a chaos of sequins and skate blades and stage moms. I was one of a dozen bedazzled bumblebees whose offering consisted of skating one after the other through a series of figure eights to Rachmaninoff’s "Flight of the Bumblebees". This anxiety inducing, increasingly frantic, accompaniment was a poor choice for a group of 7-year-olds. … One minute we were “gracefully” doing crossovers, the next we were ass-over-bumble, one bee taking out the whole apian peloton. It wasn’t me, I swear. Or maybe it was because I got pulled from figure skating shortly thereafter.

To be honest, I have a long-standing tradition of being a poor audience member for cultural events in general.[2] Plays, opera, ballet, and especially symphonies - I have had really expensive naps at all of them. M is no better. The first time we went to New York we went to the MET Opera house, spending a lot of money we didn’t have to sleep soundly through the entire performance. As parents, hoping to impart greater cultural appreciation in our children, we took our kids to many events where we would bookend them in the seat row and simultaneously fall asleep. Once, we did this at the matinee of the Nutcracker, where we were ironically asked to leave for talking through the whole first Act. Talking? Talking in our sleep maybe. (It was the family behind us…btw…just saying). 

I, mostly, stayed awake during the girls’ various recitals. But the organizers often made it hard. These recitals often felt like their retribution for the hours upon hours of slogging through a never-ending stream of Yankee Doodle Dandy-ing without ever getting their own gold star sticker. The internal groan upon discovering that the program was two sided. The external groan when reading the word “Intermission”. Usually, the folding chairs kept you awake through sheer butt-torture. But, one time, when I sat in a couch at the back of the room I MAY have had a wee bit of a snooze. In my defence, this particular venue was the teacher's home. It always smelled like cumin, mixed with cat dander and the off gassing of her ancient dog “Boots” who lay in front of the piano and farted loudly throughout the entire event. Sometimes sleeping is a form of self-defence. 

Plus, these events invariably took place smack dab in the busiest times of the year, when you are sprinting across town from piano recital, to dance recital, to banquet, to year end ceremonies, to fun fairs, to band nights. Every event pre-supposed that it was the only such function you had on the roster that week/day/hour. A consistent common trait among instructors was that they didn't have children themselves - let alone multiple children with competing events. They simply had no clue that “More” was not “Better”. They also often event-ized these testimonials to their teaching prowess, like they were filling out their social calendars. They would think it “super fun” to add After Parties to these already too-long events. These were usually my ultimate social hell: Potlucks-with-Strangers in weird piano-teacher homes or church basements.[3] To be blunt: "I ain't got no time for that." This sounds mean, I know…but I literally didn't have time for that, let alone the attention span.

Another aspect of my PAAD is that I often revert to teen-on-a-field-trip mode in these settings. Not parent chaperone mode. Teen mode. Maybe even Tween mode. At first, I am all shifty, I talk too loud, my compensating class clown kicks into gear as I forget the names of all the parents sitting around me. Once the performance is underway something will inevitably give me the uncontrollable giggles. Once S was performing as part of a choir in a church. The setting reminded M of some of his high school antics during chapel. These included “Booking” - a classic boy-prank wherein the hymnal was placed ‘just so’ on the pew so that when the target “may be seated” he got the book spine jammed up his nether region. As mature adults and respectful parents, you are probably thinking right now: “Oh, NO, you didn’t!”. 

Yes. 

Yes, I did. 

I “Booked” M, causing him to loudly YELP into the silence right before the next song, just as the choir director’s wand hands were poised dramatically in the air. Now, I encourage the girls to “find the fun/funny” in life, but perhaps there are limits? Whatever, I have no regrets...I have never silent-laughed so hard. 

As I reflect on these events, it occurs to me that I may have eliminated every recital based activity, Art-by-Art, from their girls’ roster. I keep remembering ONE of a lot of these events. One play. One ballet recital. One Hip Hop recital. I think I was actively avoiding parenting scenarios where I lined myself up for guaranteed failure. Ballet school got jettisoned because I couldn’t get past the creepy man who played live piano accompaniment in the corner. Not to be cynical, but I really think there aren’t enough legally viable investigation avenues to ensure that that dude isn’t playing three note piano for little girls in leotards for all the wrong reasons. Theatre got eliminated after S’s grade school drama teacher compensated for her thwarted Broadway dreams by creating her own Montessori E.G.O.T. After hundreds of hours of rehearsals, I fumed through a three hour play in which S appeared for approximately one half second. This took place on December 23rd - like no-one had anywhere else to be. 

Many of the options got removed from the repertoire because I felt like it was more about the instructors’ egos and/or questionable leadership. I cannot “Unsee” 6-year-old C’s Hip Hop routine to Ke$ha’s “TiK ToK". Picture a bunch of little white girls wearing bandanas on their heads DuRag fashion, miming brushing their teeth “with a bottle of Jack” and booty dancing and groin popping to: 

"I'm "talking about everybody getting crunk, crunk
Boys tryin' to touch my junk, junk
Gonna smack him if he getting too drunk, drunk”

I did not love this celebration of female objectification and poor life decisions, but I remain eternally grateful for the excuse to escape the dance cult, I mean troop, world. 

As I said, I am the girls’ super fan and despite having heard them play and sing daily at home, I would (still do) get all prideful weepy whenever they got up on a stage and rocked it. Or even when they didn’t. One of my prouder parenting moments was watching S expertly mimic her school bandmates note-by-note when I knew for a fact she couldn’t read music and had no idea how to play the instrument. She went through the whole term pretending to blow and play acting at her finger movements. She got an A. Given that the course was also half Drama this seemed entirely merited. Nonetheless, this was the official end of school bands for us.  

In the end, I basically filtered the extra curriculars down to the point that what was left - Be in the Band for S & H and hockey for C - were activities that I could FULLY show up, and stay awake, for.  I (choose to) believe the outcome was a win-win for everyone. 

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[1] Let’s be honest, everyone is faking enthusiasm for the recorder. When I was a kid, I was taught by the woman who “wrote the book” - like, actually wrote the book we used in school - on beginner recorder lessons. Let’s take a moment to ponder what this poor teacher must have done in her previous life to be punished with this level of Karma payback. For my part, my memories of the recorder mainly involved “playing” my ruler with “holes” scribbled along its length in BIC pen - having consistently forgotten it at home every time. I don’t know why I ever took it home. It’s not like I was practicing.   

[2] Unless it involves being stage front at a concert or festival - these days surrounded by the girls’ peers who are wondering what the deal is with “the old people”. See “Lessons from the Front (of the Stage)”. 

[3] These events created yet another occasion that necessitated teaching the kids to lie. We would concoct our group “out” on the drive to the event. See: “Party of Five”.