BALLET LESSONS
When the second baby tips the scales, a mom’s jealousy can bring
balance
By Jennifer Bingham Hull
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I took my three-year-old to buy her first ballet outfit recently.
Eyes as large as saucers, Isabelle sat like Cinderella before
the prince, as the saleswoman pulled the pink leather ballet
slippers over her tiny feet. Mesmerized, she watched as a “real” ballerina
in her teens tried on toe shoes. It was one of those outings
that every mother treasures. There was only one problem.
Suddenly I wanted to be that ballerina too.
I quit ballet in kindergarten and never considered taking
it again. I don’t have the body or coordination to be a dancer. Anyway,
with horseback riding lessons and swimming, I had a busy, charmed childhood.
I was hardly deprived. And I can’t say I missed my calling. I
haven’t thought about ballet since I was five years old.
But oh to be that lithe, graceful ballerina! To pirouette
and prance across the stage, light as a bird. Watching the
ballerina in her
dainty toe shoes, I suddenly felt depressed. Depressed?
I expect motherhood to highlight some losses. We all have
interests we failed to pursue. It’s normal to feel jealous
when your child takes up something you would have liked to
have done.
But ballet? I begged my mother to let me quit ballet.
What’s up? I wonder, still cranky two days after buying Isabelle’s
leotard and slippers. And if this is how I react to ballet, what’s
going to happen when my daughter does something that I really would
have liked to have done, like take piano? I see the mothers in their
SUVs driving their kids from soccer to swimming to tennis. I know where
this is going. And I want to support Isabelle’s interests.
But one trip to buy a leotard has thrown me into a depression.
A week later I watch Isabelle’s first ballet class.
Bending like a willow, the teacher guides eight wiggly fairy
princesses across the
floor. I press my nose to the glass and Isabelle throws me
a big smile. Ballet makes my day.
Still, something is not right.
It hits me when I catch a reflection of mommy and daughter
leaving class in the window. What a precious little ballerina,
with her
white cotton training panties hanging below her black leotard!
But who
is that large woman in the billowing jumper holding her hand?
Is that
a maternity dress? Didn’t she have Isabelle’s
baby sister a good nine months ago now?
Soon after, the young trainer at the gym listens politely
as I explain how the having a second child has left me
with an
extra 50 pounds.
We discuss metabolism and muscle mass and she sets me up
with a
weight-training routine. I start slowly, doing one set
of 15 repetitions on the chest
press, leg curl and six other machines. I hate sit-ups
but force myself to do 50 of them. When I add the “butt blaster” a
week later I feel good but not graceful.
This is not like being a ballerina. I don’t feel
like a fairy princess in my sweats and sneakers pumping
iron.
But I feel something. It’s as though I’ve rebalanced some
invisible inner scale, regained some equilibrium between satisfying
my daughter’s needs and my own. I’m happy to
drive Isabelle to dance. But I want to be light on my feet
too.
Jealousy can be a great guide for a mom, even if it’s not clear,
at first, where it will lead. Sure, some small part of me would probably
like to be a ballerina. I’d also like to have Barbra Streisand’s
voice. Doesn’t the girl inside every woman feel these
things? Yet I can live with these losses.
But I can’t be the fat mommy driving her daughter
to ballet.
Isabelle prances across the kitchen floor every morning
in her tutu, her head full of big-girl ballerina dreams.
I fantasize
about fitting
into one of those sleek spandex exercise outfits.
Fifty pounds from now, when I make that magical purchase,
I bet my daughter will want one too.
(Note – I’ve lost 50 pounds since buying my daughter’s
first ballet outfit. I bought jewelry instead of spandex but I’ve
given away the maternity underwear.)
