A Kid With a Dream Doesn’t Always Need a Plan B

After trying every after-school activity, from soccer to t-ball to tennis, my daughter, Carina, found her passion at 11 years old: dance. It was the one thing that lit her fire. From her first recital, she knew she wanted to be a dancer, but when her dream inevitably hit the reality of the guidance counselor’s office, I knew I had to intervene.

The role of Dance Mom had never been on my radar. I had been something of a tomboy, so I naturally started my daughter out in softball and Taekwondo. I was uncomfortably out of my element in the dance world. I couldn’t sew on a sequin or get a ballet bun right. I still remember using too high a setting on the hotel iron and melting one of her costume skirts an hour before a competition. The only thing I really knew how to do was be supportive and write checks, and that I did, all the while watching my pre-teen apprentice evolve into a serious dancer: competitions, solos, company, all of it.

Now, most little girls take dance lessons at some point. “Ballerina” still makes the top-10 little girl career list, and who can blame them? All that glitter! Unlike a teacher or a veterinarian though, “dancer” is not the career your child’s high school guidance counselor is programmed to promote. In this world of STEM and AI and advanced degrees, it is not considered a legitimate pursuit and is therefore not taken seriously. 

I think it’s important to distinguish here between the recreational dancer and the career-track dancer. Some studios have companies or competition companies that can put your aspiring dancer on a career track. They require enormous amounts of time and even more money. My daughter, for example, danced 23 hours a week, 11 months a year, all through high school. We traveled weekends during convention season, and I spent roughly $11,000 annually. Even then, many company kids do not pursue dance as a profession. My daughter’s resolve only increased.

So, when my sophomore dancer walked in after school one day, talking about maybe going to college to study history, I knew something was up. She had just met with her guidance counselor, and like so many of our children who walk into that office with lofty dreams, she got the dreaded retort: “What’s your Plan B?” She was crushed.

I’m not knocking guidance counselors. I suppose they feel a certain duty to provide students with a realistic plan intended to ensure their financial stability. In some cases, parents may be relieved to have the assistance of an independent third party in steering their child away from moving to L.A. to be a rock star or an actor. 

In this case, however, a high school guidance counselor had just become a barrier to my child’s future best life. Like any teenage girl whose mother occasionally mentions that she is beautiful and intelligent, my daughter tended not to believe a word I said. That meant this counselor, this person who only knew the one-dimensional, report-card version of my child, had more credibility with her than I did, and I knew it. 

Enter Mama Bear. “You do not need a Plan B,” I looked her right in the eyes, grabbed her hands, and stated with as much authority, supportiveness, and compassion as I could possibly marshal into one sentence. “Don’t you let anybody ever tell you that you can’t dance.” I proceeded to regale her with my personal story of career pushback, followed by multiple anecdotes of dancer success stories pulled from dance blogs and convention lore. But what if nobody would hire her, she asked. Audition and apply until they do. But what if nobody would hire her, she asked again. Start your own studio. Failure, I explained, is not the opposite of success. Quitting is the opposite of success. You only fail when you decide to quit, and you are no quitter.

Seven years, one Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Dance, and two interviews later, my daughter is a dancer, teacher, and choreographer in Chicago. She would have excelled at anything else she had put her mind to, but what I know as a mother is that we are on this planet for a terribly short time, and that reality has a way of carrying us away from our dreams. Guidance counselors have their place, but they don’t know your child like you do, and they shouldn’t be the last word on their dreams and goals. From one mama bear to another, don’t be afraid to send them out in the world with their Plan A. Who knows? You may just end up with an astronaut. Or a dancer.