Lily last fall, with her rented trumpet.
A few weeks ago, Lily, our fifth grader, told us she wanted to quit band.
To most parents, this kind of announcement would be met with a shrug. OK. It’s not your thing. Onward.
But to me and Joe – who MET solely because we were both part of the Michigan Marching Band’s trombone section (after playing for years in our respective schools’ bands) – well, to say the announcement has knocked the wind out of us is an understatement.
I will say that part of the problem is clearly the way Lily started on her short-lived band journey. When I was in school, you started from scratch in sixth grade, when it was an elective class in middle school – so it was simply integrated into your regular school day.
In my daughter’s school, you instead start the process in fifth grade by arriving at school an hour early on Mondays and Wednesdays and learning some basics on your chosen instrument, by way of the local middle school’s band director (godspeed, brave soul, godspeed).
Lily chose trumpet last fall (because, you know, there are only about four trombones in our home, so why pick that?); she went uncomplainingly to practice for several months; had one “talking too much during class” incident; and then, a couple months later, made her decision to quit, citing her annoyance at getting up early; her dissatisfaction with the director (though, again, hardest job in show business, as I tried to explain to her); and the fact that “all her friends had quit.”
Not great reasons, to my mind, especially since the before-school thing is temporary, and the issue of her friends having quit would be mitigated when several schools feed into her middle school band next year, thus giving her a whole new set of people to befriend. But here we are.
“It just makes me sad,” I told her. “Your dad and I got so many really cool opportunities because of band. We got to travel to lots of neat places, and be part of things like the Rose Parade, and so many of our closest friends came from band.”
“I know, Mom,” said Lily. “But that was you, not me.” Continue reading
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