Why Are Some Parents Just Plain Crazy and Never Happy with What They Get?

Hannah takes tap classes once a week through the park district and she LOVES it. She loves the friends that she's made in class, her teacher, the cute little dance outfits that she gets to wear and most of all she loves her tap shoes. I love it because she gets to go out and do something that she enjoys and because it's only $180. Now some of you may think that that's a lot of money but in reality it's not. The cost of the class covers all classes (from October to April), and costume and recital fees. I looked into actual dance studios before signing her up with the park district and they were charging on average $350 for 12 to 15 weeks which is just insanity to me! Besides, the park has a great program and wonderful teachers and I am greatful for them.

Hannah's recital is 2 weeks from Friday and the kids are all busy trying to learn and perfect their little routines. Last year was Hannah's first year and she did great but the place that the recital was held was a madhouse. It was held in a huge gymnasium that was complete chaos. There were around 1000 people there, it was hot and noisy and nobody listened to directions. the performers had to sit in the back of the gym on bleechers to wait their turns. While back there, lots of kids ended up falling and hurting themselves and a few kids somehow managed to wander away and get lost - how scary is that!

This year there is a new person heading the department and she decided to move the recital to the (much smaller) Oak Lawn theater. The kids will have two days to perform and it should be nice because the theater has stadium seating so everyone will actually be able to see the stage. The new director and her group of teachers have worked really hard to make this as nice as possible for everyone but of course there are still lots os disgruntled parents. It was announced at a parents' meeting a few weeks ago that parents were only allowed to buy 5 tickets total for both recital days (for the first 5 days that the tickets were on sale and you can try to buy more after the five days if there are any left but of course nobody heard that!!). You'd think this poor girl said that nobody was allowed to come and we all had to wait in the parking lot until the kids were done! Since then all I've heard is people complaining about how unfair it is and how they have 20 milion people that HAVE to come and they just "don't know what to do"!!! At first I thought it was silly but then I started thinking about it and the fact that there are almost 600 kids in the dance program and I figured that 5 tickets was actually pretty generous. I've wanted to so badly to tell lots of people to shut the hell up and be greatful that they're getting that many tickets, but I've been really good and have kept my mouth shut. Let me tell you, keeping quiet about the whole thing has been really difficult - especially today.

Recital tickets went on sale this morning at 9am. Everyone that came to buy tickets got a number and you bought your tickets as your number was called. I thought they went on sale at 8am so after dropping Hannah off at school (Alexander stayed overnight at my mom's so that I didn't have to drag him with me) I headed on over to get in line and I'm glad I got there when I did. I was number 41 out of over 160 people. I was there for 2 hours and the whole time I heard nothing but complaining!!! "Why didn't I know that you could come early for a number?" "This is horrible, I'd rather fight for seats like last year." "It's so unfair that we only get 5 tickets, we should be able to get as many as we need." "This program used to be great. We're not coming back next year." It went on and on and on for what felt like an eternity!!! As soon as I got my tickets I practically ran out of there, I was SO happy to be away from the complaints! I just couldn't understand why everyone had to be so miserable and negative about the whole thing - I still can't understand!! Why is no one grateful for what we did get? Where are all of the "Glass is half full" parents?!?! I just hope that they aren't like this on the nights of the recitals and ruin it for the kids because then I won't hold back - and then I'll probably be in jail!! :-)