Yes! You did make a blog out of it! If only parents knew the damage they were causing! The recitals! The recitals! Who could ever forget them? Do you think our mothers just liked the piano? Was it a generational thing and our generation didn't like it?
What?
I loved the flute and piccolo, but, I chose them for the band. I loved the band, and all my friends were in it. The piano was connected to our church. All the girls were at my church. The teacher was at my church. They used an organ, but, she was a piano player. Does every girl's life play out like this?
Oh, I asked to stop, but, I wasn't Shanghai'ed into it like you were. I was told I would be starting.
Yikes. Your story was like peeking in a looking glass, except I had six brothers and boys didn't do piano, don't you know?
You know, there were very few bad things that ever happened like that and the good certainly way overshadowed the bad, but I have to admit, it damaged my trust. I mean I knew it was possible that she would say I couldn't quit, but it never entered my mind that she would claim she didn't remember saying it. I simply didn't believe it. You know, in that day and age, she would not have had to give me any reason, just NO.... but "I don't remember saying that???" Didn't fly with me and my heart was broken.
I lived through it though, but I never got use to it and I never liked it and recitals were a terror till the very last one.... and it didn't make me stronger.
It makes her sound terrible to tell this story and my view and remembrance of this, but she really wasn't, normally.
I don't know why the piano, except that my Great Grandmother, Grandmother and Mother had played. I guess that means you have to make one of your children play too...LOL.... my younger sister took lessons too later and she liked it much better than me, so ended up playing better too. If she ever minded the recitals, I don't remember.
Boys and piano? In that photo that my young Mom is in, there is a tiny boy to the far right. That is my Uncle Jack ! I have no idea why or how or what he thought about it as the convo has never come up.
Band ?.. oh yes.. .but I was a Bootgirl, halftime shows at the ball games, marching behind the band doing a routine with pompoms in the Christmas parade. No playing instruments and never alone on stage !
Brothers had it good, both were drummers in the school band and other bands as well.
You would think as a mother you would know your children's personalities enough to know when not to require one to go solo on a stage for a crowd. You would think.... but maybe not.
I think mothers are more perceptive now, or perhaps they wanted to realize the potential they thought they saw. Lucky you didnt go to a Catholic school. We had to learn an Irish jig for St Patrick's Day. Don't you know all of the nuns and Priests were Irish and Italian.