When you’re a parent, there are countless thrilling opportunities to doubt yourself. Each decision you make has the potential to be the key to your child’s lifelong happiness, or identified as the moment it all went wrong by their future therapist.
This week, as the three kids who have been cast in the new Harry Potter TV series were announced, I breathed a sigh of relief. My son loves acting, singing and dancing, and like every child in the country who is that way inclined, he auditioned. I’m so glad he didn’t get it, for the obvious child star reasons. Now I’m wondering if I’m a bad mum for even letting him try.
His penchant for jazz hands has led me into a strange alternate universe that feels like a sketch, or Motherland storyline, where this is the norm: the world of the pushy stage parent. The more dedicated ones fork out for dialect coaches, manage their offspring’s professional Instagram accounts, and wave them off cheerfully for months at a time if they get a theatre show tour abroad. They run their kids’ careers like businesses.
square CHARLENE WHITE Don't call me a 'dance mom' - I'm not defined by my kids
Read More
My son goes to classes at a local performing arts centre. It has an actors’ agency attached, which is apparently commonplace, and after a few years they suggested representing him. He was really excited, and, naively, my husband and I thought he’d have fun, rather than seeing it as the first step in a masterplan for him to achieve global acting domination.
Almost immediately he was sent to try out for a West End musical. As we nervously walked towards the building, we saw a queue of mums and boys outside, which we joined, and the woman next to me looked us both up and down. She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“I haven’t seen you before,” she said, as if this was something I had done on purpose to psych her out. “How old’s your son, nine? He’ll be up against mine then.”
She gestured next to her, where a boy in full football kit was slumped, like a puppet nobody was playing with.
“Sam goes to the Cub Academy,” she told me. I was confused, which would quickly become my default state in these situations.
“It’s a training programme for kids to be in The Lion King, although there’s no guarantee that they’ll get it. And so far, he hasn’t,” she added pointedly, about her own child.
“Oh great,” I replied, weakly. “Do you enjoy it?”
Sam raised his head and stood up tall, as though someone had inserted a coin in his back. He smiled toothpaste-advert-style, and said loudly and animatedly, “YES! I LOVE IT!” Then, as quickly as he’d come to life, he reverted to his previous apathetic position.
Once inside, I tried to catch the eye of a mum looking anywhere near as out of place as me, and was met with blank gazes, or no gazes because they were too busy trying to smile at the casting director instead.
I assumed my son would go in for the actual audition on his own for 10 minutes or so, but that we’d wait until that time together. I was wrong. A man with a clipboard instructed us to collect our kids in three and a half hours. I had to leave my poor little boy there, alone and friendless, for a workshop.
Flustered, we hugged goodbye, and managed between us to knock over the takeaway cup of tea I was holding. A river – nay, ocean – of liquid pooled around our feet and began to spread outwards. People stepped back, as if we had leprosy. Every single pair of eyes in the room stared at us. I cannot imagine it’s possible for a human being to feel more uncomfortable. Break a leg, son!
But there was more. When I returned, it became clear this wasn’t the end for everyone, just the first cut. Some boys were asked to stay, and a handful of rejects brought out, in a very ugh-we-don’t-want-these manner. Yes, of course my boy came out. Yes, of course, Sam didn’t. That’s showbusiness, baby!
Our Harry Potter experience was uneventful by comparison, a self-tape rather than in-person meeting. I recorded him on my phone, standing against a blank wall, first introducing himself and then performing a short monologue. As is often the case, a while later one of us realised we hadn’t heard anything back (your agent only gets a “thanks but no thanks” if you get quite far along in the process).
My son was briefly disappointed, then quickly forgot about it, and moved on to the next one. I’ve told him it’s usually nothing personal – doesn’t mean he’s not talented, they probably just wanted someone taller/shorter/with different colour eyes – so many times he groans when I start my pep talks now.
A year into this, I’ve had to separate my reaction to all the rejection (distraught/vengeful) from my son’s (impressive/resilient.) He wants to keep going, although I constantly remind him he can stop any time. Sometimes I wonder if he’ll ask his Dad and I how we could have let him do this when he’s older. How poisonous is the ruthlessness and don’t-call-us-we’ll-call-you-ness he’s become accustomed to?
And as tough as it is to be a stage kid, maybe it’s even harder to be a pushy stage mum. It’s awkward and excruciating, even if you don’t spill anything, plus regularly heartbreaking. There’s also so much boring hanging about.
So while everyone’s fixated on the new Harry Potter kids’ gilded cage futures – please, won’t someone think of the parents?
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( My son auditioned for Harry Potter – now I feel like a bad mum )
Also on site :
- Numbrix 9 - June 4
- Commit Biologics appoints leading industry experts to newly formed Scientific Advisory Board
- Grammy-Nominated Singer Gets Devastating Cancer Diagnosis, Will Undergo Double Mastectomy