I took the girls and two of their friends to see 101 Dalmatians: The Musical this afternoon. It was a good introduction to musical theatre, the story was familiar enough to follow along and the production was whimsical and child-friendly. If we had paid for a babysitter to go see it as a date, I probably would have been disappointed. But, that wasn’t the case, and the kids all had a great time, so I enjoyed it as well.
Parenting is one big adventure of shaping your children’s views of the world, life and everything, and doing things like this makes me consider how much we are exposing them to the arts. It makes me understand how people can get sucked in to over-scheduling with activity after activity because if you neglect one, you might miss a great gift or not develop a passion. I think we can all see how an excess of pursuits can tax a family in many ways, and distort a child’s view of his own importance, but drawing the line between good and too much can’t be easy.
How do you find balance in your family? Is it dictated by time, cost, number of pursuits per child?