A beag os cionn trí bliana ó shin, mo bhean chéile agus mé ag síniú mo mhac suas ar feadh an tsamhraidh gníomhaíocht, 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.

Níl a fhios agam má tá gach duine leanbh mar seo, 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. Mar sin,, d'fhonn a shárú a drogall nádúrtha, dúradh linn dó luath agus rinne ár ndícheall a dhéanamh fuaime sé cosúil le spraoi, etc. Even with a multi-month advertising campaign, he still wasn’t convinced. We forced him to do, cé go, agus mar is minic an cás, he had a great time.

Faoin am an dara bliain rollta timpeall, he had once again convinced himself that he didn’t want to participate. Ach, Bhí sínithe againn air suas agus ar náid-lá, I dropped him off one morning at the high school where they practice. When I went to pick him up after lunch, bhí sé an-tógtha, gach smiles agus d'fhógair, "The play is the Bheilbhéidín Coinín and I want to be the Rabbit". He had spent literally months carrying on (uaireanta hysterically) faoi ​​conas nach raibh sé ag iarraidh go mbeadh rud ar bith a dhéanamh leis Rannpháirtithe Páirc agus tar éis an chéad lá, he wants to be the lead role in the play. We’ve seen this pattern before.

(I bhfad chun ár n-iontas, rinne sé an ról Coinín a fháil agus bhí sé iontach.)

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. Idir an dá linn, tá sé cinnte ar deireadh dúinn sé i ndáiríre 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, ar fáil dá scoileanna cláir níos mó do na páistí, etc. My wife grew up in that town and her parents live there, so we are "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: "Friday nights are príomh- oíche Táthcheangail codlata!" Stage Right was going to interfere with his weekend socials.

Tagann an lá, a thabhairt dúinn chuige ann dó titim amach agus mar atá le gach rud eile, a ghrá nádúrtha díreach a bheith beo agus ghlac sé ar a bhfuil dea-am a bhfuil sé.

An deireadh seachtaine seo caite bhí mo bhean ag caint dó agus don chéad uair, 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: "I thought this was supposed to be a rich town."

Gach na bliana, I never really thought that he was hearing or understanding anything as it related to the "rich town". Mar sin féin, casadh sé amach go raibh sé.

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