violin meanie

i'll admit it, i'm becoming a violin meanie. a violinie. a viomeanie... anyway. i'm becoming the sort of parent i used to hate. the pushy parent. the demanding parent. it all has to do with the violin. yes, we kind of pushed our kids into it, thought it would be good to get them into some classical instrument... (piano is just so blase, and besides, I could teach them piano: the same flawed basics i learned when I was shoved/coerced/black-and-white-mailed into it). so almost every evening, it turns out that I'm responsible for practicing violin with the kids. and you know that they don't particularly want to, i mean, they are very good kids, and they do things out of obligation, and (yerg, i feel so guilty) we've already brainwashed them to think that this is all something they WANT to do, we actually threaten that we will sell their violins if they aren't really into it, and they object, and make nice... but anyway, i have to force them through their lessons. and some nights are good, but some nights are pretty awful. i feel like a freaking parrot/parent sometimes: "aiden, look at your bow. look at your bow. LOOK AT YOUR BOW. okay, how many times do i have to repeat myself!? look at your bow. okay, so where does your thumb go? good! now put your other fingers on the bow. okay, okay, pretty good. now let me help you... aiden, stop moving your fingers, i'm trying to put them in the right place. aiden, stop moving your fingers. STOP MOVING YOUR FINGERS. make them stick. make them STICK! LOOK AT THE BOW!!!"

parenting involves many hypocrisies.

a part of me is just cracking up at myself. i mean, i was the stereotypical obedient, but inwardly rebellious, child. i was the one making up plans for how I was going to handle the whole parenting gig, be this really super-patient, super-tolerant guru parent who was always close to his kids. and yet, here i am, following in my own parents' apparently not-so-ill-advised footsteps... i am being the authoritarian dick-tator. i am being the violin meanie. oh well. someday i will try to explain this two-faced situation to my kids. soon as i understand it. (then again, maybe that's why my parents never told ME. or maybe they were just saving this secret up for the ultimate vengeance: "Ha, where's your hippie idealism NOW???")