Going to College Again
Woman in the Middle | February 6, 2012It has surprised me that the fact that my daughters are going to college has exposed my Hubby and I to new experiences. For example, Eldest daughter took a choir class one quarter and at the end there was a concert. It consisted of classical music and very old choir music and I tell you, it was not something Hubby and I usually listen to on the radio in our car! But it was good, it was nice, it was…different, and we enjoyed experiencing something different. Having the fire alarm go off in the middle of the concert, shuffling outside, and then shuffling back inside to see the rest added to the evening’s entertainment. Of course we always love watching our Eldest sing and we love to see our kids do something outside their comfort zone. All in all, it was a wonderful experience.
Friday night we had another one of those unexpected experiences. Youngest daughter likes to keep every minute of every day filled with activities. She recently got involved with a performance at her school concerning V-Day, which is a global movement to end violence against women and girls. Happily her school is close enough that we could go see her in “A Memory, A Monologue, a Rant, and A Prayer.” It was a performance by a bunch of college students who weren’t drama majors but were willing to get up and participate in monologues concerning violence against women. I was very proud to watch my Youngest participate in such a fund-raising event and there were close to 300 people in the audience. There were moments when I wiggled in my seat because no one likes to think about abuse happening to our own daughters, and that is what this performance made me think of. Again, my daughter went to college but I got to have a new experience!
If you are interested the V-Day website can be found at V-Day.org. I apologize that that isn’t linked for you. Doing that would require me to have more knowledge as to how Word Press’s website works than I have or may ever have. It would also probably require me to be younger, as that sort of thing seems to come naturally to the young…..
Nice post. As a former music teacher I am heartened reading of your experience at your Eldest daughter’s concert, but also pleased that your Youngest daughter finds good causes she performs in support of. I think everyone benefits by having some degree of stage experience so they can present themselves well when a situation requires.
I actually don’t mind getting up in front of people so one of my goals as a parent was to make sure my daughters had those kind of experiances that made them more comfortable being in front of a crowd. In our instance it was actaully church that gave them a lot of their confidence. We went to a fairly small church at the time and every time you turned around the kids were doing something like performing at the Mother’s Day luncheon. I remember when they had to do little presentations in school and they just got up and did it, got an “A” and sat back down. But inevitably there was a kid sitting next to them who was shaking from fear. They were always so puzzled why that kid was so scared! So, what ever else I may not have gotton right, I did get the public speaking thing taken care of with the girls!