I'm a full-time mummy of a 2 and 3 year old, and that means that my eagle eyes are always on the lookout for activities and groups that we can all go along to.Many groups that I come across are age specific and I do struggle to find things to take the gruesome twosome along to together. So you can imagine how I rubbed my grubby hands with glee when I came across a Ballet class for 2 -5 year olds ,boys and girls welcome, being run locally. I emailed off to get the prices  info ready to present to my financial advisor husband one evening after work over a cheeky glass of red."Everyone knows that boys that do ballet do not grow up into well-adjusted men"
"No son of mine's doing ballet!" was the response from hubby. I giggled at his macho joking - it was a joke right? Wrong! He was deadly serious - no son of his was doing ballet. It turns out that even in the 21st Century that the thought of hubbys digger loving, toy train wielding son morphing into some sort of Billy Elliot /Wayne Sleep / John Barrowman style of dancer /entertainer shaking jazz hands is most disagreeable.
Not macho enough apparently. Though I am informed that 'if he wants to do karate' then that's dandy.
Shocked to the core I asked my facebook friends - imagining the 'sisterhood' would leap to my defence. But no! Only one person said that they thought that it was a good idea with nearly everyone poo-pooing it, the majority it seems thinks that 'nothings wrong with it but I wouldn't take my son'.
So the question is - Can boys do ballet ? More to the point would you take yours to ballet lessons ?
I wait with baited breath....and in the meantime I can dream....
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My memories of those classes are of deep embarrassment, awkwardness and alienation - I don't even remember if there were any other boys there, I just knew that I didn't belong and I really, really didn't want to be there. Mothers sometimes seem to imagine that their young children have no sense of their own dignity - they are wrong.
If a boy really wants to pursue ballet, then he will only be fully equipped to make such a decision once he is comfortable in his own identity and his own masculinity. Shoehorning a reluctant boy into a situation like that is just mean - and will almost certainly be counterproductive.
The harassing stopped.
.