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Why You Should Let Your Kid Quit Their Musical Instrument
Parents who don’t force musical instruments on their children deny them the profound pleasure of quitting
“We have a surprise for you,” Mom and Dad say.
You’re eight years old, so you think it might be a new bike, or a tiger. You’re overjoyed. You can ride either one. You put out your hands and close your eyes.
Then they place something in your hands, something metal and cold, or wooden and hollow. Whatever it is, it feels nothing like a bike or tiger. You open your eyes and see a violin, a flute, a mandolin, or a bassoon. You’ve had worse surprises. Poison ivy, for example. Or that week when all your burps turned to vomit. But this surprise isn’t like those. This one, you have a feeling, won’t go away after a little while. This one might hang around for a long, long time.
Dad’s eyes say, “You’re going to play this or die.”
Or maybe when you close your eyes and hold out your hands, your parents lead you into the garage where you see a piano brooding in the back of dad’s truck. This is worse than a violin, flute, mandolin, or bassoon, because those things fit in garbage cans — but pianos fit nowhere, and they last. The only things left after…
