I will be there to cheer my daughter on

By Lauri Hennessey

My mother-in-law is fond of saying that if she can teach her kids one thing, it is how to think for themselves. Her philosophy always spoke to me. But as I continue along this crazy parenting road, I am finally figuring out what the one thing is for me.

If I can teach my kids one thing, it is how to bounce back.

Really, what skill is going to matter more in life? How many of us reach high and grab the first thing we really want? After all, didn't Thomas Edison say, when asked about inventing the light bulb, "I have not failed 1,000 times. I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways to not make a light bulb"?

I like to think I cornered the market on bouncing back when I was a kid. I tried out for cheerleader in 8th grade. Now, anyone who knows me knows that would be a crack-up. I am many wonderful things. Cute and perky I ain't. Tall and big I am. But I tried to do it, to be one of the cool kids. Man, I lost and thought my heart would break.

The year before that, I decided to go out for basketball. I was the tallest girl in my grade, so it seemed to make sense to me to give it a whirl. Maybe it would make sense to have me be center, with my height, right? But I wasn't planning on a girl named Laura, who was the center for our team and had been playing since she was about 16 months old, and was all-district (probably all-nation). I rode the bench plenty that first year. My dad recalls coming to every game and watching me on the bench the whole time, cheering frantically for Laura and the others. But guess who got "Most Inspirational" that year?

I look back on my childhood and teen years as a long series of failures, really. Seriously, I tried and tried. But guess what? The law of averages is a cool law for people like me. You try enough times for the stuffed animal at the arcade games at festival, and you get one. You try enough times to fit in when you are a kid, and you do. By the time I was in high school I did perfectly fine and all was well. The road there had some potholes though.

As a parent, I am finding this a big challenge - remembering how important it is to be resilient and letting your kids try and fail. It's like when your kid reaches for something dangerous when she is 18 months old. Do you throw your body in front of her and scream to save her life? Or do you let her learn? My husband and I always debated that one. Now we have a pre-teen, and I am constantly challenging myself to let her fail.

So I get this notice about auditions in Seattle for kids who are into theatre, like our daughter. I am thinking there will be hundreds of kids coming to this thing, trying out for a part in the Fifth Avenue Theatre. We are going for it. We are signed up, practicing, and getting ready to do the best job possible.

In the end, she might come out of it a little world-weary and a little discouraged, because in her mind she gets cast, she goes on stage, and she signs a Hollywood contract in seven minutes. But my job, as a parent who believes in resiliency, is to say, "You didn't fail. You just have another notch on your belt, because we all know that the law of averages says you need to try out 100 times to get a part. So you succeeded."

My sister often comments on my approach to life, to failure. She looks at me and shakes her head and says, "Why did you try for so many things?" I like to compare myself to Katie, Barbra Streisand in "The Way We Were". She had no business going after Hubble Gardner (Robert Redford) the most handsome man on the planet. She was Katie. He was Hubble. Who would ever imagine she could land him?

But she did. Because she tried.

So that would be my life theme. And, man trying for everything has been a blast, and landed me some very cool wins. I choose to remember them, rather than all the times I didn't become cheerleader.

So I will be there when my daughter auditions. I will cheer her on and tell her to think positively. And if she doesn't get cast? We will go and get some tea, feel bad for a couple of minutes, and then start planning the next try.

Lauri Hennessey runs her own public relations business and has written this column about children and parenting issues for the last nine years. You can reach her at Lauri@hennesseypr.com