'N bietjie meer as drie jaar gelede, Ek en my vrou onderteken het my seun vir 'n somer-aktiwiteit, The Midland Park Players. This is a drama group that spends about three or four weeks preparing for a play and then showing it to the parents, friends and relatives. It’s always been done very well.

Ek weet nie as almal se kind is soos hierdie, but my son is extremely reluctant to try new things. Knowing this, we signed him up for the program. We’ve found that it’s best to alert him to these kinds of things early and often. So, ten einde sy natuurlike onwilligheid om te oorkom, ons het vir hom gesê vroeg op en het ons bes gedoen om dit klink soos pret te maak, ens.. Even with a multi-month advertising campaign, he still wasn’t convinced. We forced him to do, al, en is so dikwels die geval, he had a great time.

Teen die tyd dat die tweede jaar gerol rondom, he had once again convinced himself that he didn’t want to participate. Maar, ons geteken het hom opgetel en op die nul-dag, I dropped him off one morning at the high school where they practice. When I went to pick him up after lunch, Hy was baie opgewonde, al die glimlagte en aangekondig, "Die toneelstuk is die Fluweel Rabbit and I want to be the Rabbit". He had spent literally months carrying on (soms histeries) oor hoe hy wou nie iets te doen met die Park spelers te hê en na die eerste dag, he wants to be the lead role in the play. We’ve seen this pattern before.

(Ons tot ons verbasing, hy het die Rabbit rol en hy was ongelooflike.)

Fast forward a few years. He’s been in Park Players three times now, so he’s something of a veteran. This summer (2008), Players starts up again. In die gemiddelde tyd, hy uiteindelik oortuig hy werklik doesn’t want to play soccer and he never liked basketball. That left him with no extra-curricular activities for late Winter / early Spring. A client with whom I was working mentioned that his daughter was in a program called Stage Right. Stage right is a slightly more expensive version of Park Players and it’s not in my town, but adjacent to it. Perfect.

The thing to know about that town is that it’s practically another country in terms of wealth. It has a high-frequency train right to Wall Street and NYC in general. It’s just a wealthy place. One of the on-going family discussion themes is whether we should have moved to that town instead of where we live now. It’s a bigger town, die skole bied meer programme vir die kinders, ens.. My wife grew up in that town and her parents live there, sodat ons "hooked in" despite not living there. I personally grew up in different circumstances in Massachusetts, so I don’t have a lot to say about this during family dinner conversation. This isn’t to say that we aren’t very happy where we live. We just know that that town is a level above our town economically.

Stage Right’s next program started too soon for us to launch our normal advertising campaign to overcome my son’s reluctance. This is when he came up with one my personal favorite arguments against doing something: "Vrydagaande eerste nagte vir slaap boulbeurte!" Stage Right was going to interfere with his weekend socials.

Die dag kom, ons bring hom daar en val hom af en soos met alles anders, sy natuurlike liefde net lewe oorgeneem en hy is 'n goeie tyd saam met my.

Hierdie afgelope naweek het my vrou is met hom gepraat en vir die eerste keer, I think he’s tailoring his discussions very precisely for his audience. She had asked him how Stage Right compares to Midland Park Players. He tells her that "In Park Players, we have teenagers that help us out. There aren’t any in in Stage Right. In Park Players, teenagers make all props. In Stage Right, we have to bring our own props. We have to do everything. And then he twists the knife: "Ek het gedink dit was veronderstel om 'n ryk stad."

Al hierdie jare, I never really thought that he was hearing or understanding anything as it related to the "rich town". Egter, Dit blyk hy was.

</einde>

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