It happened again yesterday.  The one thing I hate about my role as best uncle ever is going to events for my niece and nephews and running into adults who forget that the attention is supposed to be on the kids, not on them.  Yesterday, I traveled all the way up to the Northbrook Ice Arena to watch my niece perform in an ice skating event.  However, between the 11 and 12 year olds, the entire audience of parents and extended family of these children were forced to wait so the 21 – 25 year olds could compete.  If you are 25 years old and want to learn ice skating, feel free.  But, if you need to compete in a competition intended for children to make up for the attention you didn’t get as a child, please do it on your own time.  Have your own competition, separate from the children. 

A similar thing happened last month at an all-star band event my niece participated in.  The best students in the junior high bands that feed into the Lincoln-Way high schools were brought together on a Saturday morning, and then performed as a band that afternoon.  I give a lot of credit to the teachers, who I’m sure had better things to do on a Saturday afternoon than help these kids put on a performance.  However, that goodwill gets erased when, before the children are allowed to perform, the assembled audience is forced to listen to the teachers play not one, not two, but three songs of their own.  Again, if you want to perform in front of a large crowd, set up your own thing and don’t try to piggy back off of the children.

But we all know why they don’t separate off to their own skating performance or band concert, don’t we.  Nobody cares.  There would be a handful of people at each performance, making it not worth anybody’s time.  I can’t think of one adult friend or family member I would be interested in seeing compete in a skating competition or performing in an orchestral band.  And, truthfully, neither can the people who perform in them.  Which is why they continue to shoe-horn themselves into events intended for children, because we will go to those.