Mommy and Me
What a new dance class is teaching me about letting go and having faith
I registered my daughter for dance class this week. Dance isn’t a new endeavor for her, this will be her second year. And this isn’t some forced upon activity, as a matter of fact, it’s quite the opposite. After dipping our toe into the water last year and getting a preview at how expensive dance can be, in defiance of a culture that demands my not-even-three-year-old be busy and find her “thing” already, in wanting to hold on to her baby years for as long as I can, and especially after watching Netflix’s America’s Sweethearts docuseries, I have tried all summer to dissuade this passion of hers, but to no avail. My girl loves to dance.
This chick measures time by “when I’m big enough to go on the stage by myself, then….”1 She seeks out stages wherever we are, be it splash pads or on vacation, and then performs on said platform, no matter the audience size. Through no prompting of my own she keeps asking if I will teach her to tap dance and I know my rudimentary skills will only pacify her for so long.
When the Olympics aired I was so excited to show her gymnastics, hoping to maybe open her eyes to other possibilities, cheaper possibilities that maybe don’t lead to a panel of women critiquing indelible aspects of her physique2. I have such fond memories of trying to follow along with both Dominique Dawes and Moceanu, as well as Shannon Miller while they completed their routines, firmly believing the skills displayed on my living room floor looked identical to the ones they showcased on the Olympic stage.
On the first day gymnastics aired, I pulled out her balance beam and Nugget couch to give her all the tools to live out our gymnastics fantasies. Only, she was uninterested.
She insisted I arrange the couch into steps leading up the living room couch, a game I had introduced to her last winter when it was too cold to play outside. Even after I explained the whole point of this couch is it’s ability to be arranged into different configurations, she still wouldn’t hear of it. I kept trying to show her how fun it could be to have her vey own tumbling mat but finally gave up when I remembered arguing with a two year old is about as effective as bathing a cat and moved onto the balance beam. This held her interest momentarily, but after a few trips down and back on the beam, she moved onto something else.
As the games continued, she eventually understood the allure of the living room performance3. When I decided she was hooked on the sport, I upped the ante and took her to an open gym at a local gymnastics studio with a friend. She had the best time running across the trampolines, walking along real balance beams, and performing routines as Simone Biles AND Jordan Chiles.
High on Olympic spirit I thought to myself, Yes! This is it! Maybe I can convince her to switch from dance to gymnastics where the focus will be more on strength than skinniness! As we walked towards our car I asked if she had fun and she enthusiastically said “yes!” When I asked if she wanted to do gymnastics again sometime, she also said “yes!” But when I asked if she would like to take gymnastics lessons instead of dance lessons, she didn’t miss a beat before emphatically responding, “nope.”
Well, alrighty then.
The thing is, I have no problem with dance, really. I love how much she loves to dance, how adorable she looks in her costumes, and the confidence, strength, and skills dance can teach her as she grows. I don’t actually think gymnastics is better than dance, I know they both have their merits and their downfalls4.
Where my struggle really lies is in the steps towards independence this new class represents.
When we took a mommy and me class, it was just that— mommy and me, the two of us together. It made sense for her age, as she wasn’t even two when we started. The class took place on Monday mornings, the dress code was not strict, and our best friends attended with us. In the beginning, everything about the class felt breezy.
This year, the class will take place in the afternoons, cutting slightly into her nap time. She has to wear very specific shoes. Her best friend won’t be in her class, and neither will I. There’s part of me that relishes this small taste of freedom— 45 minutes all to myself! But there’s another part of me which feels gutted at the thought of her experiencing something which feels so grown up without me.
Before I had kids, I used to (internally) roll my eyes at the moms who got emotional over their kids starting Kindergarten. What’s the big deal? I thought. It’s exactly the same as when they went to preschool. But what I failed to understand is that when you have kids, you are constantly reconciling who they are today with the tiny baby they were just yesterday. You’re trying to objectively see them for who they are, but it’s impossible because you’ll always also see them for who they were at each previous stage.
So imagine my surprise at how, in the irony of all ironies, I am now the mom who is emotional about her daughter starting a new dance class without her.
This struggle towards independence is more than just the letting go, though, it’s also about letting others in.
In my head and my heart, I am still that new mom with a colicky newborn who won’t settle unless she’s nursing at my chest, which means all the responsibility for her wellbeing falls on me. In actuality, that was not (and is not) true. There were (and are) other people in her life who love(d) her and who help(ed) us get by, but in those early months, it was me and her— mommy and me. We were a team. And old mindsets die hard.
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As we approach this new fall season— new dance class, a mother’s day out program, a new Bible study year, there will be more influences on her life than ever before. This is all good and right and normal. I do not want her to be the kid locked in her house, only allowed to operate inside of a bubble. Bubbles feel safe, though, and the world feels scary and my baby girl is too precious for danger and scariness.
Even as I write this, I feel my chest tighten like my grip on the reigns of her life. But a gentle nudge reminds me how I’ve never been in control, not really. Even before she was born, I had to give up any illusion that I was in charge over how or when she would arrive into this world. Maybe because it took so long to finally hold her in my arms, I have to fight that much harder to hold her with open hands, or maybe all moms struggle with this tension, I don’t know.
What I do know is I can trust Jesus with my daughter. He loves her even more than I do. This week He has been reminding me how motherhood is a gift to be enjoyed, which is much easier to do with open hands when you’re not trying to micromanage every possible outcome. He then brought to mind this Oswald Chambers quote:
“Faith never knows where it’s being led, but it loves and knows the One who is leading.”
It’s hard for me not to know where my daughter is being led, but I love and know the One leading her, so I will have faith and enjoy this journey. I’ll remind myself, just like I remind her on nights when she feels scared, that she is never really alone, that “the LORD her God will be with [her] wherever [she] goes” (Josh. 1:9). Maybe I’ll even go crazy and twirl through life alongside her. Except probably not because I get terrible vertigo.
We took a mommy and me class and I must have really cramped her style by joining her in the limelight.
I’m telling you, that DCC series really did a number on me.
I should say, the living room gymnastics performance. Her father and I get dance performances every night before she goes to bed.
I’m sure if she was into gymnastics, I would point to the Athlete A documentary about the abuse the athletes of the USA gymnastics team suffered at the hands of their doctor and want her to stay far away. You can find toxicity everywhere.