Yesterday I took DD to ballet class and encountered a little girl who was also about to enter class with her waist-length hair completely unsecured. No rubber band or bobby pin in sight. Then I turned and saw another little girl with the bows of her ballet shoes in their original length tied rabbit-ear style outside of her shoes.
My first thought was, what is UP with their mothers? Why don’t they know any better? These moms would never send their daughters out into the soccer field without putting their hairs in ponytails and making sure their shoelaces are completely secured. Why would they do it in ballet class?
My second thought was, what is UP with the teacher? If this was a real ballet school, the teacher would have said something to the mothers of these girls already. DD’s teacher took one look at the little girl with the long hair and promptly tied it with a rubber band herself (she did nothing about the shoe situation). But did she say something to the moms of these girls? No. The words “Dolly Dinkle” flashed in my head.
Undeserving, perhaps? Maybe. But from my own personal experience and knowledge in the world of dance, real ballet schools DO enforce hair and shoe policies like Nazis. Hair and shoe policies exist for very legitimate safety reasons. Hair must be put in buns so they don’t whip around a student’s head during turns, possibly going into her eyes and/or blinding her, and shoelaces must be tucked inside the shoes so they don’t come undone. And when a school doesn’t enforce these rules? My gut tells me it’s symptomatic of bigger problems within the school.
I’ve started hunting around for another school for DD. While I might let her go ahead and finish out the year at this school, she most definitely will not be coming back next year.
