Kiddie Capitalism

Many parents complain of being overloaded with kids’ activities. Our trick? Only sign up one child for anything. Chiara does piano, dance, gymnastics, reading lessons and, at one point, soccer. Cody… well, Cody plays with sticks in the dirt.

I have to tip my cap to these institutions in how efficiently they separate us from our money. My theory on dance is that the lessons are basically a breakeven proposition – and that the real money is made at the recital. Between $50 in tickets, $80 costume, $40 pictures, $60 video, $20 flowers and other required (okay not required but come on, who’s not buying the video?) purchases we’re into the recital for several hundred bucks. We’re not alone - the auditorium is chock full for multiple recitals. This year Chiara increased from one to two recitals – Saturday and Sunday – which besides blowing a hole in our weekend schedule also blew a hole in our budget. Man, what a business.

If the dance hits you with a full frontal assault in the form of the recital, gymnastics is more of a covert operation. These guys have it to a science.

“Look into my eyes,” they say, waving a gymnastics medal in front of our face, “Chiara is doing VERY well.”

“Chiara is doing well,” we repeat, mesmerized.

“She has a lot of talent!”

“She has a lot of talent,” we drone.

 “I think she’s ready to move up to pre-team!”

“Pre-team… checkbook…” The coach cackles. Our brainwashing is complete.

Pre-team is twice a week instead of our current once per week. It’s $200 more dollars a month. But this is the path to competitive greatness – the road to Olympic gold runs through pre-team.

Never mind that to an outside observer Chiara’s ability to do dip-steps on a balance beam is indistinguishable from all the other girls in her class. Or that these are essentially the same dip-steps she was doing a year ago with only glacial signs of progress. Chiara has talent that really should be nurtured. Plus, the pre-team class is undersubscribed this year.

Never mind, too, that there is always one more level to go and the different levels and classes have absurd complexity. The gym has classes named after colors, letters, numbers, celestial bodies, and designations like “team.” Which class is the best amongst red, level 3, comets and pre-team? I’ll be darned if I know, but I’m sure the coaches will tell us the best next step for Chiara.

Left to her own devices, I’m sure Chiara would be perfectly happy doing dip-steps to the end of time in “Comets.” But we have social standing to maintain. Another girl in Chiara’s class moved up to pre-team before her. This simply cannot stand, since Chiara is clearly the better talent (ignore what I said above about no discernible difference in these girls. Chiara is clearly the best!). So come the fall, I predict that Chiara will be in pre-team with coaches encouraging us to move to level 3, we’ll be $200 a month poorer, and Cody will be digging with sticks in the field behind the gymnastics studio twice a week instead of only once.