Illustration by Chris Danger
As a rule, I tend to be wary of Mommy and Me classes.
I’m an introvert, so forced adult participation in group activities, particularly of the silly, ice-breaking variety, sets me on edge, even if it feels like I should be a good sport for the sake of my daughter, merrily singing the songs and shimmying along with the intricate choreography of the welcome dance.
If I were so inclined, I could sign my 2-year-old daughter and myself up for yoga, martial arts, soccer, gymnastics, swimming and cooking school. Together, we could learn Tae Kwon Do, or Spanish, or woodworking.
There’s a whole subculture out there full of parents and toddlers with more random life skills than an industrious senior citizen at a learning annex. There are adults who live for story time and group circles, who attend these classes, bond with the other parents and happily watch their eager, cooperative children gain new abilities and confidence.
I’m not one of those mothers.
I tried. I very optimistically signed my daughter up for an eight-week gymnastics course when she was 15 months old. This was back in those halcyon days when I envisioned our future as full of parent-child activities, because I had never actually participated in a parent-child activity.
In my mind, I imagined an indoor gym full of trampolines and giant foam objects, where enthusiastic coaches would help my daughter toddle and explore as I sat back and sipped coffee.
In reality, each week I was expected to lead/drag my 1-year-old through a course of objects and obstacles that were far beyond her developmental abilities. Typically, these 45-minute classes devolved into me chasing her across the studio or carrying her, squawking, across a balance beam as the instructor smiled with thinly veiled pity.
Needless to say, we didn’t make it to the end of the eight-week session.
Even then, I didn’t throw in the towel. We attended a four-week swim class at our gym, where a poor teenager tried to corral a bunch of wet, hysterical 1-year-olds as they clung to their parents’ backs like spider monkeys. He tried to get my daughter to put her face in the water and swim on her back. She reacted like he was trying to drown her, which in her defense, probably seemed like a distinct possibility.
To cap it all off, in a moment of wild optimism, I signed us up for an art class at a local museum. Compared to all the other Mommy and Me courses, I thought an art class would be perfect and easy. We’d spend an hour in a classroom with some paint and paper. I’d feel accomplished and cultured. What could go wrong?
That line of thinking lasted all the way through the welcome song and welcome book, all the way until the moment the young, bohemian instructor announced that it was time to stand up and follow her out into the museum, where we would stop at various pieces and talk about texture.
Needless to say, my stubborn, obstinate, wild, boundlessly energetic 2-year-old did not want to stop and sit and listen to a lecture about art. I tried my best. I held her and squeezed her and half-tackled her on a few occasions. I clung to her shirt, shorts and feet as she scrambled, red-faced, to get away from my iron-clad grasp. I smiled sheepishly and avoided eye contact with the other parents.
And then, when the instructor stood up and led the class into another gallery, I waited, picked up my daughter and ran.
We fled like thieves in the night, past distinguished works of art, past graceful columns and arches. We busted out into the light of the gardens, into the humid, gorgeous chaos of a summer evening, where my daughter could run and touch and explore the blades of grass and gurgling fountains and shiny wet puddles left behind by the previous night’s rain.
I stood and watched her play, and realized that this was it, our retirement from Mommy and Me. I was done with activities that neither of us enjoyed, where we both felt out of place and uncomfortable. This time in her life, when she’s part baby, part child and still mostly wild, this is the time for unstructured days, for long mornings and lazy afternoons, for tiny adventures where she can get dirty and make messes and be the willful 2-year-old she is.
I get the appeal of Mommy and Me classes. They are well-intentioned, and for some parents and children, they’re a wonderful, productive way to spend time. But for an introverted mother and a kinetic whirling dervish of a toddler, they just don’t make sense.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if parents spend their days at Mommy and Me spin classes or in the backyard watching toddlers run in circles. Every parent is different. Every child is different. Some kids can sit quietly and listen when they’re 2. Some parents are energized by making new friends at circle time.
I’m not one of those parents. My daughter isn’t one of those kids. And that’s fine. From now on, we’ll be outside, playing with dirt.
Elizabeth Becker is a writer, registered nurse and mom of two. Read more about her life and other parenting epiphanies at lifeinacoffeespoon.com.
