My 10-year-old has refused to appear in this year’s elementary school production of the holiday show.

The teacher has tried everything to get him to change his mind.

She’s asked him if he’s sure. (He’s sure.)

She’s reminded him that he knows all the words to the songs, and seems to like music, and so perhaps he’d like to be on stage singing along. (He wouldn’t.)

She pointed out to him that this was his last year of elementary school, and therefore his last year to be in this school production. (He doesn’t care.)

Last week at our parent-teacher conference, she brought it up to me and wanted to know what I thought about it.

“How many don’t want to participate?” I asked.

“Just him,” she said.

“I thought there was another boy.”

“No, he joined in,” she said.

So this other kid had caved. “Well, I’m glad to know he doesn’t give in to peer pressure.”

She looked at me. “There’s no peer pressure,” she said. I think she assumed I meant from the other kids.

“I’m not going to force him,” I said, “but I’ll ask him about it again. I know he likes to sing.”

Later, in the car, I asked him about it. Yes, he likes to sing along, but no, he wasn’t doing the show. So that was that. Part of me was proud of him, even though I knew his grandparents would be disappointed. As for my wife and me, we both thought it presented a fine excuse for missing the elementary school holiday show.

Today I came home and Dietrich proudly announced that he was involved with the holiday show.

“WHAT? I thought you didn’t want to be in it!”

“I’m not,” he said, beaming. “I’m the assistant director.”

It sounded like it had been his plan all along.

 

This entry was posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2012 at 10:32 pm and is filed under Theatre, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.