Bad Mom Confession

Last week one of my friends posed a question on Facebook. She asked if, as a parent, you should tell your child when they aren't good at something they think they are good at. The verdict came down to not say anything - someone will break the child's heart soon enough if they really aren't good at it and it shouldn't be the parent.

I am trying to keep that "conversation" fresh in my head these days.

Wesley's school is going to have a talent show in May and auditions are coming up.Wesley wants to try out, which I think is great! His teacher thinks he's really quiet (hah!) so she is quite encouraging about him participating in the show.

I have absolutely no problem with him wanting to be in the talent show. My problem is with his "talent."

Wesley told jokes for the preschool talent show last year and he was really good at it. His timing was great and we had parents coming up to us for a couple of weeks afterwards telling us how good he was. This year Wesley wants to dance to "Party Rock Anthem". And if you've never seen my oldest son dance, well...... it isn't exactly pretty. And he is convinced he's really good at it.

I've tried to subtly change his mind about what to do for the talent show. Okay, truth be told, I'm subtle like a chainsaw. I mean, the Easter Bunny even brought him a new joke book. However, Wesley's mind is made up. He's going to audition with his dance.

So what have I done instead of being a super supportive mom? I have started to pretend the auditions aren't coming up. I don't talk about the talent show at all in hopes he'll forget about it. And I don't really know what my problem is. Am I afraid the other kids will laugh/make fun of him? Yes, a little, but really, his school is so tolerant of differences, that laughter probably isn't going to be an issue. Am I worried that I'll end up embarrassed? Yes, kind of - which makes me a completely bad mom. I think my biggest worry is that he'll try out and the people running the auditions will see what a bad dancer his is and not let him perform. I'm worried his fun-loving, "I'm great!" spirit will be crushed.

So while most of me is pretending that the talent show isn't coming up, a small part of me is preparing for it, just in case. I bought the Kidz Bop CD that has "Party Rock Anthem" on it so the song will not contain any questionable lyrics and will be a bit shorter than the regular version. I have started to think about what kind of costume he'd perform in. I've even started wondering where to get colored hairspray/gel for his 'do while he's performing.

Maybe I'm not quite as unsupportive as I think I am - but I still wish he'd tell jokes.