Just for Fun

Before you read on, please take a few minutes to watch the clip above. I’ll wait :)

Last week, my mom sent me this video and asked me to share it with Katherine. We saw Music Man a few months ago and just fell in love with the story, the dancing, the music and the actors. The show is remarkable and I strongly encourage everyone to see it if you can. What hit me in this clip though was something other than the joy and the talent seen on the Music Man stage.

The video highlights the children of the Music Man (all of whom are amazingly talented) but the biggest takeaway for me came from the stars of the show, Sutton Foster and Hugh Jackman. Individually, they commented on the time they spent performing as children- Hugh primarily as an actor and singer and Sutton primarily as a dancer. They talked about their love of performing and how much fun they both had. And then they each said they didn’t consider a career in the arts until they were in their 20s. They performed as kids because it was fun- full stop.

I have struggled for a long, long time with how intense children’s activities have become. As a society, we encourage children to take things really seriously, really early in their lives. Both of the girls met with obstacles in certain activities when they started later than their peers. And when I say later, I am talking about activities they started when they were say- eight years old- activities that by that point heir peers had been doing for years.

It has become nearly impossible for a child to pick up an activity as late as middle school and it feels like trying something new in high school is just about as crazy as it gets. And for kids who really enjoy an activity, the questions arise nearly immediately about pursuing that activity in college and beyond. There seems to be little room for kids to participate in activities for fun, like Hugh and Sutton did, without feeling pressure to know what comes next.

As a parent of this generation, I am certainly a part of the problem but… I do think about this topic a lot. And truthfully, I worry about the long term consequences of this mentality on the kids who are growing up now. Will they remember childhood as a time of fun or as a time of preparing for the future? Will there be people who might have moved on to pursue activities later in life but instead burn out early on? Obviously there is no one size fits all answer to these questions. What is a challenge for one child will be a joy for another and vice versa. But… I do think that Sutton and Hugh’s take on their childhood’s on the stage is worth considering. What can our children do for just for fun? And while we’re at it, let’s ask the same question of ourselves. :)