The Type 2 Fun of Parenting
Making your kid do things now that you think they'll appreciate later
“Type 2 Fun” is a concept describing things that are miserable while you’re doing them, but fun in retrospect. It can be applied to activities like running a marathon or many other extreme physical pursuits, where you suffer for the duration, but are glad you did it after. Often, when describing the event to a friend or looking at pictures after the fact, these memories are characterized as being very positive, even if you cursed to yourself throughout the entire thing. The Washington Post also characterizes taking your kids to Disney World as Type 2 Fun—lines, crowds, and expense—often recalled as the “best time ever” even if it felt like suffering every minute you were in line for Space Mountain.
Recently I was thinking about whether Type 2 Fun also applied to the rigorous journey of learning to play an instrument as a child. Learning an instrument is often rewarding in the long-term, the skills useful around a campfire or at a random dinner party (assuming you don’t actually become a professional musician), but often arduous and nerve-wracking and tedious while you’re practicing day in and day out.
I played Suzuki violin starting at age four and learned to play by ear, then read music, and agonized and had many fights with my mom for days and hours and years about practicing the violin. I was forced to do competitions and played in a variety of orchestras and Suzuki summer camps until I was about 10, when I broke my left wrist running on the jungle gym during the first week of 5th grade, effectively stymying my violin career for good. It was a blessing, but most of the hard work was done at that point; I was a highly competent player, even if alongside my competence was an absence of any real love for the instrument.
I recently got my violin repaired after not playing it for upwards of 18 years, just to see if I could still play. I was skeptical of muscle memory, and whether I could still read music. The bow hairs were so brittle that even with the most delicate touch, they simply fell off the bow and needed to be replaced entirely. A handful of other seams were loose on the violin itself, the bridge needed to be propped back up, and I needed all new strings.
But when I got the violin back, and could play at least as well as I could play when I was ten, I was overjoyed. The kids also took a lot of interest. “You’re really actually pretty good,” said Julian, barely looking up from his LEGOs but at least acknowledging the instrument’s existence. Ada asked me to print out an arrangement for “Watermelon Sugar,” immediately seeing that my skill could be made more fun. She wanted to try and hold the violin, despite it being way too big, interested in what sounds it could make.
Until this point, I’d resolved to not make my kids play an instrument, despite Ada’s very apparent musicality, because I frankly didn’t want to put myself through it. Now, I was suddenly questioning this choice. Ada spends most of her semi-conscious time at home singing, dancing, or doing impersonations. She lays in bed writing music lyrics. She’s a kid who can listen to a song once a sing it back, word for word. She’s got good pitch, and is constantly exercising the capacity of her voice. She loves identifying the instruments playing in songs she hears, and has been able to do so in an uncanny way since very young. (Julian, while enjoying listening to music, finds her incessant singing overstimulating, and rather enjoys long periods of silence and quiet.)
However, it’s an area of her life full of contradiction. Ada also describes music class at school as a bore. “It’s the worst,” she says, and we’ve twice canceled the mandatory auditions to join a local kids’ choir. “BO-RING.” She sometimes fakes injury during her Wednesday after school dance class, but also willingly got on stage last fall to participate in a very public vogue-ing competition in front of hundreds of people. She says she wants to dance but only in the format of a child-friendly day rave. She wants to sing or rap but more Lady Gaga than church choir. She only wants to partake in the Type 1 (aka I know I’ll love this) fun, not the other parts.
Is investing in music lessons a worthwhile version of Type 2 fun? It requires encouraging and pushing my kids the way I would on a hike, albeit for longer and at more cost (emotional and actual dollars). Is it worth it for my kids in the future, who I’m now convinced will be glad they know how to play and read music? Is this a skill that matters or is this parent-culture trying to convince me its relevant? For 18 years I never really cared if I could read music or not, and now I’m forty and really glad I can show my kids I can play this instrument, however professionally irrelevant it is.
Recommended:
To watch: it’s made it everywhere on social already but Justina Miles, who performed Rihanna’s Superbowl halftime show in ASL is a national treasure.
To read: “Why Everyone Feels Like They’re Faking It” and the “dubious rise of impostor syndrome” by Leslie Jamison in The New Yorker
Also to read, related to above: “What the Suzuki Method Really Taught” by Adam Gopnik, also for TNY. Tl;dr: competence, not a love of music.
To listen: Min Jin Lee on Design Matters chatting with Debbie Millman. I’ve been a fan of Lee’s since reading Pachinko, and have been very inspired by how she’s used her platform as an activist, thinker, and writer.
Now reading: Lee’s first book, Free Food for Millionaires, which is so enjoyable, and the perfect long-but-completely-absorbing read about a post-Ivies immigrant Korean daughter from Queens struggling to navigate “the real world,” and different cultural planes at the same time. I’m 500 pages in and will report back when finished.
To play: Blokus is a super fun board game that challenges players to try and use up as many of their differently-shaped colored tiles as possible on a grid before others do. It’s kind of like strategic, analog Tetris? Loved it. Come over and play.
The kids are reading:
Ada’s obsessed with the 13-Story Treehouse series and has read the 13-, 26, 39-, 52- , and 65 - books so far. She’s also very immersed in this graphic novel by Cherise Mericle Harper, So Embarrassing: Awkward Moments and How to Get Through Them, which normalizes and finds the humor in many kinds of daily embarrassments in a very fun way.
Julian and I have been enjoying Lift, a fun book about a magical elevator by Minh Lê and Dan Santat, and going deep on Frog and Toad, the best learn-to-read books.
And, bonus…if you happen to be in Boulder:
I loved hiking the Mesa Trail from the South Mesa Trailhead in El Dorado Springs to Chatauqua Park (7.7 miles) and highly recommend (thx to my friend Sara for the rec).
Had very good coffee at Boxcar, Alpine Modern, and January Coffee.
Had great meals at Corrida (fancy Spanish), Mason’s Dumplings, T/aco, Zoe Ma Ma, and Snooze.
The Boulder Book Store is kinda endless and slightly overwhelming and also lovely.
I definitely want my kids to learn an instrument for at least a few years and to read music but am dreading the battles I know will be involved...so haven’t pushed it yet.
My sisters and I were all piano dropouts after a few years! My mom cried of joy when I asked her if we can have the old, very dusty, very out of tune piano to see if my oldest, 8, would like to play. She has been playing over a year and still likes it. We will see how long it lasts. One interesting thing about it is that she takes lessons over zoom! It was much better than private lessons because there was always a weird warming up period but with zoom they just get right into it and you sort of need to figure a lot of it out on your own when something doesn’t click. Anyway, I think you do whatever you want! Try it out and see! No wrong way when it’s your way because you’re the only mom!