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    'Dance Moms' Asks 'Where is the Line Between Your Dream and Your Child's'?

    By Redbook | Parenting – Mon, Aug 1, 2011 5:09 PM EDT

    By Charlotte Hilton Andersen, REDBOOK

    One mom forces her daughter to dance through a painful injury. Another mom brings her daughter to the dance studio at 7 a.m. and doesn't let her leave until 11 p.m. Then there's the competition where they tart all their 8-year-olds up like Vegas showgirls and then get all faux-concerned when the crowd is horrified when the second-graders do stripper squats with their legs open. The moms backstab, the teacher is certifiable and the kids are so so cute. Another day, just another trashy reality TV show, right?

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    I watch Lifetime's new series Dance Moms for the same reason I watch Teen Mom: Because they never fail to make me feel like the world's best parent. (And also because it's hard to look away from a train wreck.) But it's really the superiority complex that keeps me coming back. Until this morning, that is.

    A fellow mom friend and I were chuckling in horror over these obviously sad and desperate women trying to live out their dreams through their babies. And then she turned to me and asked, unironically, "So have you convinced your oldest to switch schools yet?"


    See, I put my son's name on the waiting list for this supposedly amazing charter school in our public school district when he was a mere toddler. (They teach Chinese from kindergarten! They do Singapore math! They offer English horseback riding! Apparently I just want my kids to be foreign?) Every year we crossed our fingers and waited for that letter. It never came. Until this year when miraculously all my kids got in!


    I didn't even ask them before signing the papers. This was for their own good! It would help them later in life! Chinese is going to be essential in the new business economy, everyone says so! But my eldest is in 4th grade and doesn't want to leave the school, teachers and friends he's become so close to. Of course the decision is more complicated than this and what we ultimately decide will not be based on just his or my limited views but it made me realize that maybe it's not dance but I definitely do have dreams for my kids. Big dreams. Dreams that I feel like I need to push them to achieve. Dreams that will make them happy and healthy and wise! Maybe!

    Related: How to Make $1000 in a Weekend

    But in the end they're my dreams. The only difference between me and the Dance Moms is I'm not getting paid to be on TV showcasing my crazy. (Oh and I would never let my little girl do a stripper squat.)

    Charlotte Hilton Andersen is a mom of 5 and the author of the book The Great Fitness Experiment: One Year of Trying Everything and the blog of the same name.



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    5 comments

    • zodiac
      zodiac  •  9 months ago
      So I looked up that Abby Lee Miller the supposed famed dance teacher. She's a fat tub of lard,how does she walk let alone dance???? She's got to be a joke and those mothers need to have CPS called on them.
    • Sharon
      Sharon  •  9 months ago
      I think, especially when it comes to art/sports/performance type stuff, make your kid stick it out for a specific time period, especially if THEY approach YOU and say, "Mommy, I want to do _______." Does my son wants to play piano? Fine, but he will stick with it for a whole year before he decides that he wants to quit. My daughter wants to play soccer? She's not dropping off until the end of the season, even if she complains. It's important for children to see that they can and will improve in a certain area if they stay with it long enough. Maybe my Mia will never be Mia Hamm, but she will learn discipline and follow-through by finishing the soccer season.
    • unknown
      unknown  •  9 months ago
      I never had a 'stage mom' through all my years of dance. She let me go or quit whatever I wanted. She was captain of her drill team in HS and never once mentioned that to me when I never made it in the 'showcase' in dance classes. While I seriously applaud her efforts to be low key about it, I think she was too low key. I never learned follow-through, I never learned to 'learn from my failures', etc. I would have like just a 'pinch' of drive from her when it came to dance. I would have never been the 'next big thing' but maybe I could have been a motivated 'little' thing.
      • Patrick
        Patrick 3 months ago
        Actually if she had been higher pressure, you now would be writing a comment about how you resent your mom for pushing you. I applaud your mom for letting YOU determine how much effort YOU wanted to put into YOUR extra curricular activity.
    • A Yahoo! User  •  9 months ago
      You can always tell who the mother's of the girls on the competition team are, at my daughters' dance studio.
    • Donna
      Donna  •  9 months ago
      Shame on parents who live vicariously through their childen!!!!....
     Post a comment

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