The Middle School Monologues: KEEP. THEM. DANCING.

Hadn’t seen her in a while. Don’t say hello right away because I can’t quite remember her name. Crystal, maybe? Carol? No matter. Turns out a first name isn’t required. She sees me and nods. We smile awkwardly. Crystal…or Carol is one of those parents I have seen often over the years at the dance studio. Hadn’t seen her lately. Her oldest daughter had left dance a few years back. Off to high school. I guess she outgrew the big bows and clickety tap shoes. She was off to cooler pastures.

It’s tricky business when kids hit that teen stride. They know it all. Miraculous, really. With no life experiences to speak of, no job, no deep relationships beyond the immediate family they keep looking to ditch at every turn in the mall, and with barely an eighth grade education to their names, they know everything. Parents hold the reins, still. But exactly how tightly to hold them is a gamble. At best, it is all a crap shoot. Holding too tightly can fuel rebellion far beyond what you were going to get in the first place. Ease up too much and the world’s temptations line right up at your front door. A new menacing Tree of Knowledge or Pandora’s Box pops up at every corner.

So, what’s one to do? Make it up as you go along, sometimes. Hear an amber alert that afternoon, your heart races, and instinct has you clamping down on those reins. Your new teen has a moment of nuanced maturity, your shoulders drop, your jaw unclenches, and the reins go a bit limper in your hands.

Kids are hard to read. But as their warlords making it up as we go, we seem just as crazy. As teachers and parents, we become the kids we have under our command. I threw a few toddler fits when submerged in the age group. And these days I catch myself throwing around some know-it-all-arrogance from time to time. I sometimes wonder who I will be when my time amongst children comes to an end. I have pictured myself as the quiet old man with very few needs sitting on a tree stump at the end of The Giving Tree. Who knows?

So my quasi dance friend, Crystal…or Carol, is back for another stint at the dance studio with her younger daughter. We make the simplest of small talk and point out our kids through the glass at the studio. Even though this is the most gentle and mundane of small talk, she seems a little skittish. I don’t think much of it at first. Kids make the best of us skittish at times.

“How is your oldest doing?” I ask. Right away her face changes. She stammers for a second and I realize that I have asked the question she has been dreading. She has returned to a familiar spot with a story she will have to tell a few dozen people in small, unimportant conversations like the one we’re having. I’m pretty sure I am first up.

“Well, Ally has just completed her second stint in rehab.” She says it with a tone as if she is telling me about her daughter’s second semester at Cornell. She is plowing through this for sure. With just a glance, she acknowledges my look of disbelief. “We are hoping for a better outcome this time. And, of course, we are grateful that she is accepting treatment.” She says the phrase “of course” as if I am supposed to understand the ins and outs of teenage rehab. I guess this is some small form of deflection. If I’m not in-the-know, just maybe I won’t flaunt my ignorance with a lot of questions.

“I’m so sorry,” I say. And I am, but I also say it because I literally have nothing else to say. It is like she has dowsed me with ice water and just screamed, “Hide your children!” into my ear. She didn’t. She spoke rather low and matter-of-factly, and yet my ears feel to be ringing somehow. In a few sentences she has transported me out of our world of public television and bedtime stories, and hurled us straight into the abyss that defines the teenage years; that time when even the most well intentioned parents can fail and lose a child to the horrors of the waiting world.

We turn back to the glass and watch five year olds tippy-toe across the hard wood floor in their crisp new ballet slippers. At this age it feels more like dress-up than dance instruction, but I know all amazing dancers first master the art of tippy-toe before launching into the world of high skilled dance. It’s like playing those first scales on a plastic recorder.

In my peripheral vision I see her hesitate as if choosing her next words carefully. I turn to face her to make it easier.

“It’s strange. I feel like I have no business giving anybody advice. I am the latest in cautionary tales.” I shake my head, but there’s some truth in what she says. I immediately found myself sizing her up as a parent, trying to find differences that would make me superior and my kids somehow safer. I check myself, then nod and lean in. She has clearly learned something. She is the ghost of child-rearing future back to help us all divert danger. She looks me earnestly in the eye. “Keep. Them. Busy.” She pauses before moving on. “Once those teen years really kick in, every friend, every party, every ounce of time unaccounted for can become your child’s one great mistake. Friends become all important. I shouldn’t have worried so much about abductors and worried about her friends much more. If you can keep them busy, if you can keep them exhausted, they won’t have the free time that can lead to all kinds of trouble.” She points adamantly into the glass window. “Keep them dancing.” Almost on cue, cinema-style, dance class lets out. I retrieve my dancer. I know full well that the arts offer my child purpose, and drive, and commitment, and responsibility, and a sense of teamwork just to name a few. The list is long. I silently recite my new mantra, “Keep them dancing. Keep them free from rehab.” I run through it a few times in my head. I grab my daughter’s hand. I hold it a little tighter in the parking lot.

“Looked like a lot of hard work in there today,” I say.

“It is,” she says back. “My toes are worn out.” I smile and notice that she is still walking on her tip-toes.

“What’s with the walk?”

“Gotta practice,” she says sincerely.

Keep them dancing. Keep them dancing and rebounding, and putting, and singing and strumming and any other thing that catches their passion. Just keep them busy. Keep them…to keep them.

And 5,6,7,8…