Do you play the piano?

I wish you could all know my mom.  She says she doesn’t have guilt about anything because just she says she does the best she can.  I’m getting better, and for the most part I’m pretty ok with what we’ve decided as a family, but this is one question I keep coming back to, feeling really unresolved.  I feel like I’m the only mom in my circle of friends who doesn’t do piano for her kids.  I’m not exaggerating.  Either I don’t know you yet, or we aren’t friends, because I don’t know a single mom who doesn’t have piano lessons on the calendar.

I even flirted with it by buying a keyboard and having a young college girl come and teach my then 10 year old son once a week.  It was awesome.  It was $5 a lesson.  Then she moved.  I let it go.  In elementary school and jr. high we bought the kids a saxophone and trumpet.  We don’t even have them in our house any more.   The boys scraped by, weren’t invested; I should’ve handled things differently.

My philosophy was and is to put as much decision making as possible back on the kids.  Just like when the community soccer, football, and basketball flyers come home from school.  I ask the kids, “Do you want to sign up?” A non-committal reply.  “Oh no,” I’ve told them.  “We are not driving to 5 practices a week all over town and sitting through 3 games just so you can get a pack of Nutter Butters and a Capri Sun.  If you are not begging and dying to play, we’re not doing it.”  I let them choose, but they had to have some skin in the game and really want it.  I figured the same philosophy applied to piano.  But I’m wondering if I messed up.  I’ve asked over the years what they thought, were they interested.  No takers.  That was that, I thought.  They’ve spoken.

Everyone I know also has their kids in sports, dance, art lessons, karate, you name it.  I’m ok with that; I’m at peace with what our family is doing.  But I can’t seem to let go of piano.  It’s not even that I think of it all the time; I forget that I think about it until it comes to mind again.  I guess it’s pulled out of sleep when I witness an amazing performance by kids my kids’ ages, when I see the joy they get from having practiced and mastered such a skill.  Granted, I know some have a little extra gift, but all the kids I know are learning and getting it to some extent.  I feel like it is one skill—like learning to read—that maybe should just be part of their education.

I wonder if I’m being selfish.  At first it was mostly about the money, being right out of school with years of student loans, no extra money for lessons or a piano.  It’s still expensive in my mind, but isn’t it an investment?  Other families have made sacrifices.  They spend their afternoons and extra dollars investing in their children, giving them the opportunity they appreciated, didn’t have, or wished they had appreciated growing up.  These are moms who are dedicated and selfless in my eyes.  Am I taking something away from the future generations by making those same kids who practiced in their youth be the same ones as adults who have to constantly accompany musical numbers and who get pigeon-holed into music?  Am I taking the easy way out just because I don’t want to be bothered?

But when I’m honest with myself, it’s not really about not wanting to be bothered.  By choosing to be a mom, you are choosing to be inconvenienced and worked hard.  I’m all about investing in my kids: we make messes, they have free reign of the kitchen and workshops and sewing machines.  I forgo the luxury of quiet bliss while they could be occupied on their machines to engage them in creative play.  We have kids over, we have quiet time.  I do what I can to observe their strengths.  I say yes to what I think will make a difference, and I cut out or say no to what will just take us away from what matters most to us.  So I’m not opposed to being bothered, invested, or engaged.  But am I just telling myself that?

And what’s wrong with introducing it now?  That’s just it.  I’m not sure of my motivation.  Would it be just because everyone else is and I’m embarrassed because I slipped up and took the easy way out and now need to reconcile that?  Is it something I should’ve been doing all along, like reading to them at bedtime?  Or can I let it go and be ok with feeling that it’s just not for our family?  I can’t decide why it’s on my mind:  because it should be propelling me to make a move? Or because I feel guilty over a missed opportunity?  Neither one of us had piano lessons growing up.  I just never knew it was such a widespread thing until the past few years when I started realizing every  kid I knew at church did it.  So weird.   So I guess I question if it’s just cultural or if it’s part of the kids’ training we ought to encourage like scouting?

I’m more than a little regretful that I didn’t require this of my older kids like one family I know with 7 kids who just makes it part of being in their family.  Would that have been right for our family?  My saddest torment related to this is when my oldest muses that he wishes he would’ve stayed with the piano and really learned it.  You can see why it weighs on me and why I’m not exactly settled.  For now, we are looking into piano options for our youngest because she shows interest.  If you’ve read my post about sustainability, you’ll know that I don’t want to start something that I don’t see myself following through with.  Not sure what the best choice is in this case, but I apply the lesson I’ve learned repeatedly.  Opportunities come and go, some are lost but not all.  We have made choices for our family we deemed best given our philosophy and circumstances.  It’s not helpful to wonder “what if?” when there is no way to replay the past.  We do the best we can, we move on, we make corrections when necessary, learn, and do better next time.  In the case of the piano, the court’s still out.