I’ve been meaning to write this post for a little while, but I’ve been a little busy (these things happen!). A few weeks ago I noticed an article about the Royal family that interested me. To be honest I’m not huge fan of the Royals, but as individuals they do come across as decent people.
The interesting article I read was about how Prince William has signed up his son, George, to ballet classes. Apparently George has a passion for dance and specifically ballet, which his parents are happily supporting. I think it’s great that George’s parents are not worried about gender norms and what society thinks, especially considering they’re in the spotlight so much.
My 4 year old son also loves ballet and goes into his lesson once a week. Before they head into class the children all queue up together and I can’t help but notice that it’s a complete sea of pink aside one multicoloured boy. Occasionally he likes to wear a tutu, but mostly he just wears a colourful pair of leggings and his orange t-shirt with a ballerina on the front.
I wish more boys took ballet lessons, there are only another 2 or 3 in the whole of the dance school my son is at. Last year there was one other boy in his class, but this year it’s just him. Which is such a shame as I do think it would be great if more boys would get into dancing and ballet in particular. It’s a great discipline for all children, helping them to work on strength and endurance amongst other things.
Apparently a lot of male football players have studied ballet in the past, one of the best known is Rio Ferdinand. Ballet can help with many skills required on the football pitch, so it’s strange to think that other boys haven’t thought about taking ballet classes to improve their football skills. Although our 4 year old doesn’t currently play football, it’s definitely on the cards. He loves to kick a ball about and has been asking about learning football when he’s older. We just need to work out which of his many afternoon activities to drop to add in football!
So although my son is currently the only boy in his ballet class, I really hope that we see some other boys join in soon. It seems like it’s much more accepting for girls to join groups that were traditionally considered male activities, but much harder for a boy to break into those though of as ‘girls’ activities. I’m glad he has chosen to take ballet for the moment and we will continue to support him and his brother in whatever activities they love, no matter what society thinks.
Margaret GALLAGHER says
Excellent – it’s our society that enforces gender stereotypes
Alica says
I have boy/girl twins and they have never conformed to stereotypical things! I hope he continues to love the ballet!
Elinor Fisher says
So agree- maybe they should teach ballet and other dancing styles to both sexes during PE lessons at school- a lot of boys and girls may prefer that to the traditional sports taught at PE!
Emma T says
I totally agree about ballet being for boys for exercise, discipline and helping other sports. In my dance school when I was a child, there was 1 boy in the grade below, and 1 who got moved into our class (who really shouldn’t have done). They were worshipped by the teacher because they were her precious only boys, and they certainly got a lot of benefits regionally because there were do few compared to us girls. The older one stressed her out a lot because he’d turn up on roller skates or a skateboard and she was paranoid he’d get injured.
N loves to dance, but the OH wouldn’t allow ballet classes even if he wanted to. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to put him in dance classes unless he specifically wanted to, but I want to encourage him when he’s a bit older into partner dancing – it’s a shame there aren’t more social dance classes like ceroc or west coast swing for juniors, because they’re more relaxed but still let everyone learn to dance, learn to work with a partner and treat them with the respect without there being so much social stigma. I think it’s so important to understand how your body works and moves, and teaches them how to treat females that they’re dancing with appropriately as well as avoiding the embarrassment that is often there. I doubt he’d want to go to classes because he always moans about formal classes they do in school for general dance or drama.