We recently had to spend a Saturday driving to the ‘big city’ to buy my daughter pointe shoes for her ballet. It’s not that we couldn’t get them close to home but it can’t compare to ‘The Shoe Room’ which is operated by National Ballet of Canada. When I was growing up I always wanted to be a ballerina but for a number of reasons, that didn’t work out for me. I always knew that if (when) I had a daughter, I would encourage her to share my love of the ballet…books, art, famous productions that we watched together. My husband and I always tried to giver all of our children the chance to experience different activities such as arts and sports with them ultimately having a choice of which one or two would become their focus. But, although there was a choice how much did we influence them or sway them into choosing what we would prefer? My daughter chose ballet many years ago, has loved it ever since and has given up a lot to dedicate herself to this one love…making me smile all the while.

Now, take my son…at an early age he had an amazing arm and throw which would have made him a natural for baseball or football perhaps. My husband played high school football but had his knee blown out in his 4th year…I think this soured him a little on the sport. We both didn’t play softball or baseball nor did we ever watch it so we kind of shied away from the whole little league thing. What my husband really enjoyed was music…rock ‘n’ roll, Rolling Stones, and guitars and drums. In fact, my son began listening to the Stones even before he was born…guess what, he’s now a fan! Not only that, he plays guitar, takes music at school and is currently taking a course where he can design and build his very own electric guitar, how cool, right?

So, what I really mean to point(e) out is that although we don’t always intend to do so, perhaps we are sometimes guiding are children to make certain choices and that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with wanting our children to share some of the same interests that we have and is probably one differentiating factor from the previous generation. But don’t forget, if they decide to find their own interests and make choices we wouldn’t…show support, give guidance and be happy if they’re happy.