Don’t Let Your Kids Grow Up To Be Me.

Please, if you’re a parent… read this.

When I found that picture on Pexels, I was mesmerized. It was like looking at a portrait of my childhood—a shadow in front of a ballet barre.

I grew up as a shadow.

Parents have this idea about not allowing their children to quit things. Winners never quit, that’s the cliche, right? There’s a fear about setting a precedent for their lives. That allowing them to give up when something is too hard will create adults that don’t know how to follow through on anything.

In some ways, I suppose I can see the logic there. You want to instill in your children a sense of commitment. A sense of achievement. A sense of fortitude. I get that. But here’s the thing… if what they’re doing is physically painful to accomplish, they HAVE to love it. Otherwise, it’s torture. And no cliche in the world justifies torturing your child.

I remember when I loved ballet. Not the entire time, I started dancing when I was two. Well, according to my parents, I started dancing before I started walking… but I started taking ballet classes at the age of two. And even at such a young age, my talent for it became obvious fairly quickly.

I was begging for pointe shoes at the age of three. It would never be allowed now, but back then, it was the parents’ decision, and to stop my whining, it was allowed. It was dangerous. It caused permanent damage to my feet and bone structure. But it was allowed.

At the age of seven, I auditioned for the School of American Ballet and upon acceptance, I moved away to live in a dorm at a school over an hour away from my parents. I was on my own. At the age of seven.

I wanted desperately to get into that school. It meant that I was not only a good ballerina… I was an excellent ballerina… and they would turn me into a career ballerina. A prima ballerina. A floating princess of grace and elegance. The school was expensive and so at that moment of acceptance to their program, my entire life was decided. There was no exit strategy. And believe me, I knew it.

I remember the exact time that I stopped loving ballet and started absolutely hating it. I was ten years old and was beginning to fade into that shadow I became. I could not quit. I could not cry. I could not complain. I could only accept my chosen fate, plaster a fake smile across my face, and dance through the pain. I danced until the age of 22 when I injured out and had absolutely no idea how to live in the world outside of a ballet studio. I didn’t know how to make choices for myself. I didn’t know what I wanted because I’d never been allowed to consider it. I didn’t know how to make friends because for my entire life the people surrounding me had been my competition. I was terrified of weight gain, I had fewer bones in my body that had never been broken than bones that I had heard snap, and the only way I knew how to smile was to fake it.

A lot of little girls love ballet. They go into it with dreams of pink tulle, pretty pirouettes, and big leaps. But when the sweet young classes age into the harder ones, the ones that will mold their bodies into shapes and contortions that have to hurt to become muscle memory, they need to know that they have a way out.

It isn’t just ballet, there are many disciplines that are painful to learn. Gymnastics is another one, many sports can fall into this category, even learning an instrument can cause pain to their fingers. But whether it’s their entire body that will hurt to excel or just a part of them… anything… anything at all… that causes pain to a child needs to be desired by THEM if you’re going to tell them that they can not quit.

Listen to them. Let them try things and let them change their minds. Allow them to know that changing their minds IS an option and that they have a SAY in how their life goes. Giving them a voice is far more important than enforcing a commitment. I struggle with committing to things and I was never allowed to quit.

Let me rephrase that, I struggle with committing to things BECAUSE I was never allowed to quit.

It cuts both ways.

I didn’t have a voice and it led to me being unsure of everything. I didn’t want to decisively say I wanted anything because doing so could trap me in another place that I didn’t want to be. I was probably the most disciplined child you could possibly imagine. I was also miserable.

I can’t tell you to close your eyes to picture something I’m writing about because then how would you read it? But I want you to try something…. follow these steps:

Stand up straight. Straighter than you’ve ever stood before. Keep your neck straight and your head up without extending your chin. Hold your right arm above your head. Not straight up. curved above it so that your hand is directly above the center of your scalp but not actually touching your head. Make your fingers pretty (stretch them apart and without bending them, aim your middle, ring finger, and pinky toward your thumb — but keep them straight and do not overextend your pointer finger). Now hold. As you hold that position go up onto your toes. As high as you can go. If you need to use your other hand to balance on something, do so, but only when necessary, let your body be your balance.

Stay there for half an hour.

Then, staying on your toes, with your arm still held above your head and your fingers still pretty, bring your right foot up the inside of your left leg. Keep your toes pointed and do not go flat on your left foot. Your body is your balance, do not hold onto anything and do not fall. Bring that right foot to your left knee then turn your right leg outward. Turn with your hip, and keep the rest of your body straight. Only the tips of your toes should be touching your left knee. Your right knee should be at a perfect 90-degree angle from the rest of your perfectly straight body. Now hold that position. For at least another half an hour. Oh… and don’t forget to smile.

At the end of this hour, your left calf will be screaming, your right hip will be sore, and your arm will have gone numb from exhaustion but only after the pain has come in waves. Your neck is tired, you’ve probably dropped your left foot to flat at least 10 times and/or let your right foot down as many times if not more.

Now… imagine that right arm that you’re holding up is sporting a cast because your wrist is fractured. Every time you dropped to a flat foot or put your right leg down, the clock started over. Someone has come to you and physically pulled on your right knee while pressing the small of your back because the angle wasn’t perfect. Your shoulders were pulled back because your posture wasn’t perfect. Your fingers were relocated because somewhere in the numbness the pretty was lost. If you lost your smile anywhere along this process, you were yelled at to put it back on your face.

Imagine the thing you used to keep yourself balanced with your left hand… isn’t there. You don’t get to balance yourself with anything but your core body strength. Falling or wobbling is not an option. Your left hand also has pretty fingers and it is held with a curved wrist in front of you. You’re not just on your pointed toes, you’re on the tips of your toes in pointe shoes. At least three or four of your toes are bleeding. One of them is broken and taped to another.

Your hands, wrists, neck, shoulder, hips, knees, and toes all ache. They’re all heavy and painful. But do not stop smiling.

Now… imagine you’re eight years old.

Got a good picture in your head? That’s core strength training for a career ballerina. I still loved it when I was eight years old. I pushed through the pain because I wanted to be the best. It was only two years later that I didn’t want to push through anymore. When I was done with the pain. When I wanted to just be a normal child. But I didn’t have a say.

If you would put your child through this based on some idea about what it means to quit something they’re good at… ask yourself why. Ask yourself if it’s really that important. Ask yourself what your child’s pain is worth to you. Ask yourself the price you’re willing to pay for them not to have a voice.

I grew up knowing my dad would take me out if I only said the word but my mother would hate me more than she already did. My pain was not just ignored, it was inconsequential. It was denied. I was forbidden to cry or complain because I WANTED it.

Yes. Once upon a time, I wanted it. Until I didn’t. Until it just became something I happened to be good at.

Talent and desire are not the same and talent shouldn’t be a life sentence. It’s good to be proud of your kids for being talented. It’s good to encourage them to pursue things. It’s good to instill values and teach them about hard work and discipline.

It’s horrible to forbid them a voice in their own lives.

People have limits and they know when they have reached them. They feel it in their bones and to think or decide that a child isn’t capable of that knowledge is false and it’s dangerous.

A child that is brave enough to say that they don’t want something is a child that knows that they are loved and that they’re heard.

Ask them why. If they loved something and they were really good at it but then suddenly didn’t want to do it anymore, ASK THEM WHY. And hear their answer.

If it’s something simple like they would rather play video games or watch television, teaching them not to be a quitter is valid. But if it’s because it hurts them, physically and/or emotionally… please listen.

Don’t let your kids grow up to be me.

I write pieces about my time as a ballerina for two reasons. First, it’s my catharsis. I need to tell my story and get it out of my head and let it be written away to my past instead of an ever-present nagging wonder of what my life could have been if only…

Second, I want to serve as a warning for people with kids that have an interest and/or talent in something that requires them to physically hurt themselves to become the best. They need to not only want it… they need to LOVE it. It has to be their main dream. Their ultimate goal. Their greatest desire. Because if it’s not, why are you allowing your child to hurt?

I was allowed to hurt. I was FORCED to hurt. And it changed and shaped me in ways that can not be undone. I can write about it until my fingers fall off and maybe in doing so, there will come a time that I let go of that pain. But writing about it will never erase it.

It happened. And I will always live with the knowledge that it happened. But I hope that somewhere out there a parent will read my ballet pieces and see in them their own little girls. That they will pay attention to those little girls and listen if they say that they don’t want to do it anymore. That they will make sure those little girls know that they have the RIGHT to say that they don’t want to do it anymore.

I am a living, breathing, cautionary tale. I am the end result of a voice lost and silenced.

Your kids may be extremely talented. I was. I am not being cocky, I was REALLY good. But that talent became my life. And I never had a childhood.

Childhood passes so quickly. Never be the person that takes that from your kid. Let them experience other things. Let them be kids. Let them try new things and run and play and go trick-or-treating and find and voice their limits.

I’d trade all of the talent my body ever held for an actual childhood.

Talent shouldn’t be a sentence.

For me, it was.

Do not let your kids grow up to be me.