Ballet Moms

Yes, I live in NZ but there is something so encapsulating about the word "mom" especially when applied to categorizing different groups of Mothers.

At pre-school pick up yesterday I ran into a Ballet Mom. We'd trialled ballet for a term last year, but had decided it wasn't us. She proceeded to tell me about they were doing "such amazing things" now, how the little girls were dancing above their age level, and how the teacher is "so FAAAB u lous" (yes, fabulous is actually three separate words) which I replied to in the appropriate places with a bunch of "aww"s and "wow"s and "I bet"s. Just as my face started to ache from all the exuberant smiling and nodding the conversation came to a natural pause; Ballet Mom turns to me and says: "So, what does your daughter do, then?".

Ah. (Pause)

So here's the crucial point, I must answer with care. It's like the choice between the snakes and the volcanoes in the Pick a Path book "The Jungle of Peril", because we don't do any activies. So my options are:

a) lie "we've just signed her up for violin, Irish dance, tap and a hip hop class, they start next week"
b) extend the truth "we're just doing extension pre-school stuff at the moment, like maths and writing" (dividing up the last chip packet into thirds counts as maths, and drawing on the walls counts as writing, right?)
or
c) be creative "we're not doing traditional extension activities but we've signed her up for a weekly tour of the art gallery and she's SO into Picasso right now".

Of course, I could have just been honest: "Actually, we just go home and hang out. She's only 4..." But that's a move that could get us permanently removed from the birthday invite list, and I don't want my daughter to suffer from Mom Politics.

So I took option c and got creative "Well, I've just found about Zumba For Kids, and so I've got her name down for that, we're going together". I was quite satisfied with this, and so was Ballet Mom. At that point storytime finished and our kids were all released to go home.

Still, hopefully it won't last too long, by the time my daughter is 5 there won't be as many mothers like this to deal with... in our area there is a plethora of Decile 10 state primary schools with good reputations which none of the Real Ballet Mothers will be sending their children to... Not to the local school, with the local children, after all.