I tried, I really did.  All three of my boys were musical, with our oldest displaying his drumming prowess at two and a half years old, banging out syncopated  rhythms to a recording of West Side Story.  Our middle son, although he is a visual artist, has an incredible ear for music, recognizing music from many different genres, with the ability to discuss these genres in depth.  My youngest was ridiculous, with no fear, as he approaches most things, he picked up just about any instrument he wanted to and played it.  It didn’t matter if he was playing it correctly, it was always musical.  Crazy stuff.  And all three of them could sing.  I just couldn’t get them to sing anywhere.

A a vocal major myself, it was a little frustrating.  Maybe it was BECAUSE I was a singer that they just didn’t want to deal with it.  After all, I remember singing in the car or humming while I was shopping and the boys would say, mom, can’t you stop that?  When they were goofing off singing some Weird Al Yankovic parody or singing something from a Monty Python movie, they would nail it, but I could never get them to sing anything seriously.  So, I gave up.

None of my boys went into music, with the reason being that they saw how much time their dad and I spent doing it and they wanted to have a life.  Can’t say I blame them, but I always felt a little bad about this, like as musical parents, we should have pushed harder.  We should have made them take lessons with the best people, insist they practice.  We just didn’t.  Then I look at our musician friends, and all of their kids are doing music somewhere, usually being obnoxious overachievers (nothing personal), and I would feel like a loser parent for not having pushed hard enough.

In the grand scheme of things, while they were involved in music, each of them to a certain extent, it just wasn’t their thing.  Like most students I have, where I hope to teach them enough to understand, appreciate and participate in it, I know that very few will seek to pursue music as a career of any kind.  My own children are like that, wonderful, kind, productive young men, but I’ve always been a bit disappointed, in a shallow sort of way, that they didn’t opt to stay in music.

So today at church, standing with my youngest son and his wife during the music, I began to hear a familiar voice a couple of seats away.  It wasn’t my husband, although it was close, and as I listened more intently, I realized it was my son, his voice strong and  perfectly on pitch, as he participated in the congregational singing.  For a while I just listened – wow, he was good.  And why shouldn’t he be?  He was brought up in a home where everyone was taught to love music, no matter what kind of music it was.  And while he opted not to major in music, despite his talent, he is the epitome of an educationally well rounded person.  Isn’t that exactly what we hope to produce as teachers?  What more could I ask for? This morning I heard my son singing.