Amazing things happen sometimes to parents. It seems that they are all interested in success, wishing well for their children. And they do a lot for it. And then they seem to be afraid: isn’t it too good?
14-year-old Dasha was brought by her mother, who said in a whisper: “She is a little slow with me…” Large, clumsy Dasha shifted from foot to foot and stubbornly looked at the floor. It was not possible to talk to her for a long time: she either mumbled, then completely fell silent. Already I doubted: will it work? But — sketches, rehearsals, and a year later Dasha was unrecognizable: a stately beauty with a thick braid, with a deep chest voice, appeared on the stage. I started getting good grades in school, which had never happened before. And then her mother took her away with a scandal and tears, sent her to a school with increased learning complexity. It all ended with a nervous breakdown in the child.
We mainly work with adults, teenagers are an exception. But even under this condition, more than one such story happened before my eyes. Shackled boys and girls who began to sing, dance, recite and compose something of their own, whom their parents quickly took away from the studio … I’m scratching my head over the reasons. Maybe the changes are happening too fast and the parents are not ready. The child becomes different, he may not “follow in the footsteps”, but choose his own path. The parent anticipates that he is about to lose the main role in his life, and tries, as long as he can, to keep the child in check.
At the age of 16, Nikolai opened his voice, the young man gathered at the opera department. But my father said “no”: you won’t become a peasant there. Nikolai graduated from a technical university. He teaches at school… Students often remember how their elders told them something like: “Look in the mirror, where do you want to be as an artist?” I noticed that parents are divided into two categories: some, coming to our shows, say: «You are the best», others — «You are the worst.»
Without support, it is difficult for a young person to start a path in a creative profession. Why don’t they support it? Sometimes because of poverty: «I’m tired of supporting you, acting earnings are unreliable.» But more often, it seems to me, the point is that parents want to have an obedient child. And when the spirit of creativity wakes up in him, he becomes too independent. Uncontrollable. Not in the sense that he is insane, but in the sense that it is difficult to manage him.
It is possible that paradoxical envy works: while the child is restrained, I want to liberate him. And when success looms on the horizon, the parent awakens his own childish resentment: is he better than me? The elders are afraid not just that the children will become artists, but that they will become stars and enter a different orbit. And so it happens.
At the Star Factory, where my husband and I worked, I asked 20-year-old contestants: what are you most afraid of in life? And many said: «Become like my mom, like my dad.» Parents think they are role models for their children. And they do not understand that the example is negative. It seems to them that they are successful, but the children see: downcast, unhappy, overworked. How to be? I understand that it is not always possible to help. But at least don’t get in the way. Do not extinguish. I say: think, what if your child is a genius? And you yell at him…