While I was driving through Joplin this afternoon I passed Palen Music, and I began to ponder the question: will I be as uninvolved in my daughter's activities as my parents were mine? As a child, I did not play sports, as the other children did, nor did I attend summer school or any other activity that would require my parents to transport me back and forth. The center of my parents’ world has always been my dad, nothing or no one was as important as he was. Imagine my surprise, when I asked to join the band in elementary school, and dad said yes, on the condition that I played the saxophone. I practiced, and practiced in preparation for our first concert. I had to practice at school or when dad wasn’t home, because he could not hear the television over my “screeching”. When the time came for that concert, dad was too busy with his friends to attend, but mom made that concert, one of the few that she attended. Over the next few years, I became old enough to take myself to the school for concerts, pep band, and to perform with the marching band, by that time my parents’ involvement had become became minimal if any. I often wonder if self-centeredness is hereditary, and pray it is not, and that I am able to support my daughter with anything she chooses to pursue, whether she wants to be a ballerina or a racecar driver.
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