Music to My Ears

Last week I heard the words that almost every mother longs to hear. I knew I would hear them eventually. I was willling to be patient, not bring the subject up. Those words I longed to hear were words for the future; a future I would think about wistfully at times. But that dream came much earlier than I expected. My 16 year old is no where near the wise mature man I plan on him becoming someday, so I was surprised and stunned when he said to me,

"I wish I hadn't quit piano lessons."

Every mother who has dragged her child to any kind of "good for you" activity, does it with the mantra of "you'll thank me later" or "someday you'll be glad I made you do this". Piano lessons and swim lessons were those kind of no option activities in our house. I never had to drag anyone to swim lessons, but piano lessons were a different story. Most kids don't choose piano willing. But, I knew it was important, and I was willing to do what ever it took to provide piano lessons for my family.

We never had much money and didn't own a piano, so the obstacles were pretty big. But I squeezed a little out where I could, to pay for lessons, and then found a friend who was willing to trade yard work and house work for lessons (thank you Becky!). We practiced at Grandmas and at the church and eventually another friend bought a new piano and gave us her old one (thank you Jill!). I endured whinning and fighting, and groaning and threats, but we continued to practice and take lessons. Eventually it all became too much, or maybe it was part of my general relaxing of our house rules. I let the boys quit, but told them they could take again any time, because someday they would be sorry they quit and they would thank me for making them take lessons.

But that's what moms do. We decide what's best for our kids and then we have to decide how far we're going to push it. We don't get thanks for it untill years later, but we do it because we know its what our child needs. I guess I'm still waiting for part two of that dream of the future. I know that big "thank you Mom", will come, someday, because everychild grows up eventually,even know-it-all 16 year old boys. But untill then.....am I allowed to say,

"I told you so!"