<p>glassharmonica, you are so right–it’s so easy to hyper-focus on one minor aspect and blow it out of proportion. I apologize if I made anyone nervous. The main thing is I wouldn’t worry about it now. The MT program would train them to learn sight reading or picking up music quickly. THey’ll have four years! It’s a useful but not essential skill. And they will learn it, or at least learn to pick up melodies very quickly. :-)</p>
<p>From reading several of the above posts, I feel at such a disadvantage to live in a state that only has 24 hours in a day. Your kids were so lucky. ;-)</p>
<p>halflokum…we must live in the same state. I thought my kid’s schedules were crazy, it seems like they had a lot more free time, and they did shows in school and out, took voice lessons and dance lessons as well other EC and just for fun activities.</p>
<p>Yes… could be the same state. If I had been on top of things, I would have moved our family to a property that was on the line between time zones. Then if my daughter needed more time to get her homework done after rehearsals or swimming or watching Glee, she could just switch rooms. She never had less than 4 hours of homework a night so that might have come in handy. :)</p>
<p>It’s good to be young. I could never do what my kids do. I think all of our kids, particularly in this field, are very very busy!</p>
<p>Well, busy kids mean busy parents, particularly if you have to drive them or pick them up/take them to the train. My own kids weren’t as busy as some of the kids here seem to have been. They reach a point of exhaustion and like to focus more intensely on one or two things. Even so, I found myself CONSTANTLY driving. For a few years, I put 30,000 miles on my car per year, most of which was driving to auditions, lessons and games (my youngest does sports!). The worst was when my kids did a show at community/professional theatres. I have to get up at 5:30 am for my job, and the shows/rehearsals would end at 11 pm or so; I would be so exhausted I’d fall asleep on the couch with the phone at my ear, then tell my kids to call me when they were close to ready. I’m sure all of you have MANY stories like this! So for those of you whose kids were extremely busy, more busy than mine even, I hope you pause to pat yourselves on the backs for being there for them. 
It wasn’t possible without you guys.</p>
<p>The BEST day was the day my daughter got her license and could transport her and my son to and from rehearsals…the saddest was when the rehearsals were going to last til after midnight and she was not allowed to drive! Those late nights at the theatre is how I ended up getting so involved the local theatre community, and I still am and will be even when my son leaves. I love the people and the experiences…as long as I never ever ever have to get on stage!</p>
<p>connections, I can really relate to the driving! My husband and I each put 100 miles per day on each of our cars readily when the kids lived at home. Also, the distance to many of their activities were so far that we had to stay at the activity because it was too far to drop them off and go back. I used to think of myself as “taximom” and my car as a place for transportation, dining, dressing room, and study space. I also felt relieved when my older one got her license at sixteen and could get herself places. My younger one (theater kid) got her license at sixteen which was during her final year at home but shortly thereafter, she had a terrible accident and was out of everything and so her time driving while living here was quite minimal, though I was down to one kid at home at that point. </p>
<p>One thing for certain on this forum is that there are a lot of very supportive parents out there!</p>
<p>I, too, spent a lot of time sitting in the car waiting for an activity to be finished. Thank goodness for audiobooks.</p>
<p>One thing about having to pick teens up from late rehearsals – sometimes those drives in the dark can inspire great conversations.</p>
<p>With my son going off to college in a few months, I thought I was off the hook for theatre stuff, but now his 7th-grade sister has a role in the middle school musical, so it’s all starting up again!</p>
<p>I know this is bad, and my kids need some tough love on this subject, but . . . soon to be 20 year old D and 18 and 1/2 year old S both have no desire to get their licenses! I am still carting them around. My oldest, unfortunately, got into a small accident when she was on one of her driving lessons and is now petrified to drive. Youngest just doesn’t want to bother. </p>
<p>Luckily S has many friends who drive and are in all the same shows as him, so he gets rides all the time. I make him give kids gas money. D has a job now that is on the bus line so at least I don’t have to drive her back and forth.</p>
<p>Come the fall, when they are both off at school (fingers crossed!) - I won’t know what to do with myself!</p>
<p>Marbleheader, you are not alone! Of my kids, only my 24 year old drives! When my daughters were about 17 & 15, their friend was tragically killed in a car accident, and they delayed learning. I thought it would be for a year or two, but as of now, three of my kids who can drive, don’t. So I’m STILL driving, though not as much as my daughters are in college. We’ll be moving to a town with a train station into the city, so I’m hoping that’ll help a bit! Soozievt, I remember reading about your D’s accident. I’m so very glad she had a full recovery; that must have been awful.</p>
<p>That is horrible about the car accidents…I can see why the kids are nervous about driving. Soozievt, that must have been a very long, scary year. I am so glad she doing so well now.</p>
<p>I do miss the quality time with my children, but we live in smallish city so we were rarely in the car for more than 15 minutes…although a lot of heart to heart talks were had in this short amount of time.</p>
<p>It’s understandable about the fear of driving from knowing people or being in car accidents. My kids had neither of that. They got their learner’s permit on their 15th birthday and a year later (the law in Florida is a year after learner’s permit) on their 16th birthday, they got their license. I had so much freedom when my daughter could drive- she’s 2 years younger than my son!</p>
<p>I’ve been resisting the urge to post on this threads but I have to chime in in the driving thing with a resounding “ME TOO!” Oldest (daughter) was petrified (minor accident early on created major panic) and did get her license at the ripe old age of 18 but rarely drove till after college, when she had to do it. Took about a year before she was really comfortable, and she still hates driving in snow (and she lives in Cleveland!). Second (son #1) acted cool but was secretly afraid…also had accident when he first got his license …at age 22!! And of course is now fine and loves to drive. Youngest, at age 18, doesn’t even have his learner’s and couldn’t care less, but has promised to work on it next summer. We’ll see…</p>
<p>By the way, their schedules were never even in the ballpark with what’s being described earlier in this thread. One sport and one x-c art (music or theater) were the maximum I would allow, in part because I have to work sometime—how do you guys do it?? Anyway, even with what appears to have been a “light” activity load compared to some, my kids wouldn’t have had much time to work on driver’s ed., which is not offered through our school. Whenever someone asked me why my older kids didn’t have their licenses in high school, I’d just ask “what should they give up to learn to drive?” And I’ll admit that after 25 years of teaching teenagers and hearing about their driving disasters, I was not inclined to insist that my own kids hit the road until they felt ready. So here’s to late-driving solidarity, ladies!</p>
<p>OMG I jut had time to read this thread and I, too, have an 18 year old non-driver!!! Who knew this was an MT trait, lol!!! My D took driver ed at the exact right age (16), but the class ended just before Christmas 2 years ago and during Xmas break the DMV wasn’t open at times I wasn’t working, and then the second school started up again she was in rehearsals every day for her school musical, and we could never make it over there!! Then when the musical was over there was the dance show…and all this was complicated by the fact that we live on the border of 2 states and she could only legally drive in the one we live in, but she goes to school, dances, and does basically EVERYTHING in the other one, so she wasn’t practicing driving…and then she was away much of the summer, and time just slipped away to the point where she no longer felt confident driving. My sister thinks that it is SO ABNORMAL for a teenager to not be just insanely dying to get their driver’s license, so I’m glad to see I’m not alone in this. And BTW SoozieVT I can attest to the fact that in Vermont, you have to be a blender to be in All State.</p>
<p>“My sister thinks that it is SO ABNORMAL for a teenager to not be just insanely dying to get their driver’s license, so I’m glad to see I’m not alone in this.”</p>
<p>My brother thinks the same thing! I’m so glad we all brought this up because I feel less alone. Maybe it IS an ‘artistic ego’ thing? </p>
<p>By the way, so strange how All State is different in different states. I hadn’t realized that. In NJ, blending has NOTHING to do with getting into All State. You audition alone and besides ‘blending’ is not on the scoring rubric. Does Vermont do All Eastern? All Eastern too does not include ‘blending.’ Good thing for my kids–their voices are too big or perhaps distinctive to blend well, which is why none of them were in the school’s highly ranked a capella group. </p>
<p>Cool sharing our experiences.</p>
<p>connections, yes, VT does participate in All Eastern. </p>
<p>The blending thing is on the rubric for All State Auditions, however, and you audition in a quartet for All State Chorus. As I said, my D got into All State Chorus freshman year, but not her next two years left of HS, but yet in those years, won the state scholarship (solo award) for Voice (classical) and for Jazz (voice), but the audition for the State Scholarship was done entirely solo. </p>
<p>My D never auditioned for All Eastern, and I can’t recall why except that her schedule was jam packed with other stuff, including outside of school.</p>
<p>(unlike your kids, my two kids got their licenses as soon as they were able to!)</p>
<p>Blending doesn’t have anything to do with having a “big” or “distinctive” voice. It’s about understanding what you need to do with your voice in a choir or chorus setting.</p>
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<p>Maybe so but what you need to do with your voice in a choir can work against what you have to do to be a successful soloist.</p>
<p>Agree, at least that was my daughter’s experience with choir. Plus she personally does not care for the breathy, airy sound that was desired most often by her particular choral program. It was not fun and not helpful. She could do it just fine but she didn’t want to sound that way and had to work to recover from a spate of choir performances when going into a show where she had a solo song. When they overlapped there was much frustration.</p>