It always amazes me how anybody with children manages to hold down a job here with all the driving that is required. Some parents I know spend a good couple of hours every afternoon driving their kids to private lessons, after picking them up from their private schools in their big gas-guzzling cars.
I have no intention of banging on about the environmental implications of all this because I really can’t get exercised about that. It is just that I find it incredible that people have the money and the patience, (that is nearly always the mothers) to indulge in this expensive and very time-consuming pastime….
I had a taste of it this week with an early evening concert at school. Instead of one trip to school in the afternoon, I had to make three with a trip downtown in the middle of all this to buy spare clarinet reeds. All very stressful and expensive at €25 for 10 reeds. But we all know that playing an instrument turns your children into little geniuses and gives them hours of pleasure (apart from when you have to force them off the Wii to practice) and naturally makes them a generally cultured and well-rounded person, so it is worth every cent!
It is the driving around and the hours spent sitting through school concerts, listening to everyone else’s little darlings that I object to. I think kids should be banned from playing in concerts until they can play at least one movement from a concerto. Judging from the amount of parents who drag the whole family, the maid and the video camera out just to capture the very tedious moment when their little genius, who has been learning for five minutes, plays a stuttering version of Old MacDonald, I really wonder if I am alone here?
I don’t want to give the impression that it was all bad. There was some real talent on display. I don’t necessarily include my child in that! I was just unfortunate that I had to miss most of the good bits because after an hour and a half I had to go home and feed the dog. But I have it on good authority that I missed all the best bits. If I could have taken the dog, life would have been easier of course; I could have listened and enjoyed the whole experience for longer.
Unfortunately dogs are not usually welcome in schools, which is fair enough I suppose, even though unlike some of the little kids who attend these events, she would not have been running up and down the aisles, banging toys and doors and shouting. In fact dogs don’t seem to be popular anywhere here, parks, cycle paths, streets, even though they are definitely a lot less irritating than some toddlers and their parents!
