CMP Review 2024-08-08

August 8, 2024

When other CM parents talk about not driving all over the place for sports practices and other lessons, I keep quiet. I admire their ability to provide a quiet growing time for their children. I admire their masterly inactivity.

I wanted to be like them. I sat down over ice cream with my nine-year-old to talk about whether he really needed to be skating so much. I mustered my logic and reason to little effect. He just looked back at me patiently, waiting for me to understand. To accept that he wanted to be the best ice dancer he could possibly be.

Seven years later I watched him compete at Lake Placid where he put all of his hours of practice to work. After his last event it was time to relax and celebrate. There was no more ice and no more coaches, and his skates were finally sealed up in a bag.

A free night at last. I walked out of my hotel only to find my son on rollerblades (!) enjoying the long track outdoors. I tracked him down and asked if perhaps he might want to get some dinner. “I’m not really hungry,” he said, as he cast an eye to his skating friends.

“Maybe mom will go to dinner with you.”

Of course I want to carry out the perfect Charlotte Mason education. But there is something I want even more than that. My son has a dream. And a part of me has to become masterly inactive in order for it to come true.

@artmiddlekauff