Ballet runs on moms
There’s a chapter in my book called “Ballet Runs on Moms.” It’s about the ways in which the labour of ballet parenting falls disproportionately to mothers, in part because all the labour of parenting falls disproportionately to mothers.
Moms are the ones who keep the mental notes which colour leotard their daughter needs for this grade and how many pairs of tights currently have runs in them. Moms are the ones who sit — or, before the pandemic, sat — in the lobbies of dance schools with one eye on their dancing child and the other on a wandering toddler, answering work emails on their phones. Moms are the ones who attend the pre-pointe medical screenings and information sessions and take their kids to the ballet store to be fitted for their first pair of pointe shoes. Moms are the ones who do check their daughters’ hair to make sure their buns pass ballet muster or, as one mom told me, who teach daughters to do make up so they won’t go on stage looking like tiny clowns. In my interviews for Turning Pointe, it wasn’t that dads weren’t involved — they did the pick-up at the end of classes, they appeared on stage as party guests in The Nutcracker — but ballet, very clearly, runs on moms.
The best way to sum it up is a joke I made that didn’t end up in the book:
Ballet dads: I do the pick-up a few times a week and last year I helped build the sets for Nutcracker.
Ballet moms: We started her in Freeds, but the shanks were too soft and she was breaking them in really fast, so we tried Blochs but they’re sagging at the heel, so next we’ll try Capezios but that will have to wait until after Nutcracker.
For moms of ballet students of colour, especially Black students, there’s more labour: who runs out at the last minute and finds the right colour performance undergarments because the school shop only stocks pale ones? Who goes to the drug store and then stays up at night putting foundation on the “nude” straps of a recital costume to make sure it blends with the dancer’s skin? Moms do that work. That’s to say nothing of the extra emotional labour of raising a kid in an artform that can be unwelcoming or downright hostile to Black dancers and especially to Black girls. It’s just so much work, of so many different kinds.
Perhaps you have read the “oof” story of the week, in the New York Times, about three working moms struggling to stay afloat during the pandemic. Perhaps you have seen this photo, one of many documents contained in the article that includes audio recordings taken by moms and their kids over the several months during which the story was reported:
Ballet runs on moms. This whole damn country runs on moms. We don’t have a social safety net, we have moms — and the moms are breaking down. The Times has called its series on mothering during the pandemic “The Primal Scream.” No wonder there’s no “pandemic baby boom.” Not to sound like a meme here, but, have a baby? In this economy?
Some of my favourite reporting for this book involved interviewing ballet parents - moms and dads — and hearing about their experiences raising dancers. Perhaps that’s because I don’t ever see myself becoming a professional dancer or a ballet teacher or a choreographer, but I can see myself, maybe one day, if we ever climb out of the giant hole we’re in, becoming a ballet parent.
That’s why I’m so excited about parts of this book launch that will bring me into contact with yet more ballet parents. I’m in the beginning stages of planning events for the spring that will bring me to dance schools all over the country (Zoom! Sometimes it’s good!) and allow me to speak with lots more ballet parents about the issues I cover in the book and the issues their dancers are dealing with. These events will be free for the dance schools that host them, and free to attend, and they’ll also be a way to support local book shops. I’m really excited about them.
If you think your dance school might be interested in hosting a Turning Pointe event, please let me know by replying to this email. I can’t wait to meet you and all the other exhausted ballet moms out there.
Thanks, as always, for reading.
Chloe.