[MaryMag]

Like some of you, I have parents who aren't very supportive of my desire to become a professional singer/actress/dancer/whatever. It frustrates the hell out of me and really breaks my heart sometimes. I was just wondering if anyone of y'all wanna share your stories concerning parents who don't support you or discourage you from pursuing the performing arts. Maybe we can find a little comfort in the fact that other people have the same problem and yet overcome it anyway! I'd also like to add that though my parents aren't horribly supportive, I have found surrogate 'theater parents.' My boss at my last job was a very good friend of mine and my mother's age. She went to every little play I was in more than once and would talk to me on the phone when I was crying about not getting a role. I've also found encouragement in my brother-in-law. Any of you found support outside of your parents?

[LaurelDP]

My parents are supportive to a certain extent.
They encourage me doing high school plays. And performing for right now.
But I explained to them that I want to pursue this for my life, and they weren't having it.
They do understand that I'll do what I want regardless of what they say.
So I guess they are reluctantly supportive, because my dad said that he would help me financially, but to a much smaller extent than if I were pursuing something else.

I only find great support in my peers and the community. My peers who have similar goals are my best support system, but several of the area's real supporters of the arts are fans of mine, and keep me encouraged and on my toes.

I'm just concerned for myself when I go away to conservatory, which is my goal post highschool. I'm really worried I'll be "alone in the world".

[MsDivaKate]

My father encourages my sister and I to do whatever we desire and says he'll support us no matter what, but then he gets frustrated at me when I'm out of work.

My mother on the other hand who is the one who encouraged my sister and I to take extra voice coaching/dance and drama classes has said that she doesn't consider theatre to be one's only professional career.

Mostly, my parents are pretty supportive though.

[Sean]

my parents are very supportive. They want me to try and audition for everything, they always say you never know until you try. My sisters are supportive too, they come to every show that I am in, same with my niece. and all my friends support each other!

[MademoiselleMusicals]

My mum is very supportive. However we both know that I won't get a career out of it, so instead I'm working to be a journalist, something that involves English and also I will get a chance to review musicals anyway!

There have been times when it's like,'your school work should come first,' and earlier on in secondary school I didn't concentrate on school as much as I should have.

But the older I've gotten I've realised that my education has to come first any day, which has put me in my mum's shoes as I now see things from her perspective.

[bwayluvor31]

My parents are not very supportive at all. I mean, my mom pays for things like voice lessons and theatre camps during the summer, but she can't understand (and doesn't want to understand) why I love perofrming so much. Whe I first told her I wanted to persue this field, she got angry and said that I would be throwing my life away; but if I love it, is it really throwing my life away? My other mom just doesn't care, she doesn't try to discourage me, but she's not encouraging either. It hurts.

MaryMag, I completely understand the surrogate "theatre parent" concept! My mentor ______, is mine. He comes to every performance I do, even if it's just a recital, and he talks to me about any aspect of performing I have questions about. He was the one who gave me my first line when I was eight! I am forever grateful that he's in my life.

[sorrytorie]

I've always been a sporty girl. I've done sports for all my life, but at the same time have been in love with singing and dancing. Plays always have kind been out of the questions, but now I'm really experessing alot of interests in them and my parents don't know what to do. They are very confused, just as I am. choosing between two loves is very hard.

My mom says she just wants me to do what will make me happy, but my dad wants me to play lacrosse and not go out for the play. I'm so torn, and my parents don't know how to support me. Its super tough ti have my parents, then see moms and dads who support and truly care about their children's desires to do theater

[phantomphan85]

I'm very lucky in the sense that both my parents (especially Mum who acts too) have been very supportive of my acting, but I've also always had a lot of support from my grandfather who was in the business for most of his life and before he retired was also a well-known TV personality in the South East of England, so I have inherited my love of entertaining from him.

[LaurelDP]

I just kind of wish my parents and family would enjoy the arts. Even if they didn't support me.

Granted, my mother does come see my plays. Except for the one time I was in Oklahoma as ensemble.
But I know she only likes to see me. She doesn't care. She would never go see a play I wasn't in.
My dad tries to make it to my shows.
My brothers only saw me in Once Upon a Mattress, when I was a lead.

In the last show I was in, I died in the first act. So my parents left during intermission.
They also left during intermission when I was in The Tempest because they didn't understand the language.

But I appreciate the effort, I really do.

[broadway_baby416]

My parents are both ultra academic. My mom's a teacher and my dad's a lawyer. However, when my dad was in high school he sang and did musical theater, so he supports it as an extra curricular. But when I told them that I wanted to audition for more things and pursue it as a career, they both flipped. They said that academics come first, and that if that's all I want to do with my life, they're not sending me to college. They furthermore said that I will go to college, therefore I can't pursue the performing arts as a career.

They're right in a way, I think. It's important to be able to do more than performing arts, so if I can't find any work as a performing artist I can do something else. Maybe work as a voice teacher in a music school, etc.

[MsDivaKate]

My father only sees shows that my sister and I are in and has no desire to see a musical otherwise. He is extremely proud of the both of us though and I know that he frequently plays the cd of my senior recital and other recordings I've done at his office, so much that I had to make copies for half the people who work there.

My mother actually enjoys theatre quite a bit and loves going to shows, regardless if my sister and I are performing or not. I'm actually going to see the Rent tour with her in a few weeks.

[MaryMag]

[MsDivaKate]

I agree completely with you MaryMag.

I double majored in voice performance and music therapy, figuring I could use my therapy degree as my fallback. I was working and interning as part of my program in Queens but after that ended and I moved home because I couldn't find work, I realized I couldn't find work as a therapist here either.

[jazzygirlsings]

My folks support me in spirit and have helped as much as they can financially, but they're poor, so they can't help me very much financially...

[sunrae]

My parents didn't let me go to college as a theatre major either!! They said they weren't going to pay for school for something that woulddn't get me a job. So I started out as a math major. Then after one semester I changed to a double major with math and theatre. And after another year I dropped math and was just theatre. My mom wasn't mad though because she knew I loved it. She said that I should just do whatever will get me through school the quickest so she wouldn't have to pay for six years of college...and I told her I would get theatre done quicker. Also she said the mosst important thing is just to have a degree, whatever it is.

Now that I am married and bought a house and living in a small town my mom is actually a little disappointed in me that I didn't try to run off to New York to pursue theatre more professionally! Haha! Ah well....

[jazzygirlsings]

It's never too late, dear...

[Gwen]

My dad has basically no support for me what-so-ever. My mom pays for my dance lessons, which he doesn't think I should do. It's all an issue of money for him, he complains about it all the time. I bought my own tap shoes for a performance of anything goes, with my own money, and he called it a waste.
"Fifty bucks down the drain," as he put it. (They were nice, I still have them!)
I paid for my own dance shoes and pants, and my mom pays for my jazz lessons which I started this year.
He basically thinks theater is a waste of time. I went to see Cats for the first time, (my favorite musical,) and he was being all mopy and crabby about it.
I'll most likely never be able to persue my dream with all the money it takes. There are no good colleges/universities for theater where I live, and I'm financially unable to move out of state to persue it. What makes it the worst thing is ever is that my family doesn't encourage me much either. (Except my mom.) I'm unable to get a job with all my school work.

[TheWitch]

My mother is nothing but supportive. Sometimes a lil too much, even.

However, my father is anything but. When I first movied to New York it was fine until I found out that my mother was the one that was practically paying for everything. The school, telephone, cable, my spending money, and most of my rent was all provided by her. My father gave me some spending money and didn't even go half way on the apartment i was renting. When I asked him about this he said that if I was going to a business school he would have payed for everything. It really sucks now because he forced me to come home for a while and now he's trying to convince me to move to Dallas (I'm from south tex) and study business at the local college and "do my thing" at the local little theater. A BIG change from working with seasoned broadway performers in New York. My mother thinks he's finally lost it. It's also kinda funny that my stepsister (his stepdaughter) seems to get more from him than I do. She's gotten her first new car at 16. I got a used beat up ranch truck at 18 by my step father. At 18 she will get another car for graduation and also get to "come out" in the local debutante pageant where dresses can go up to around $30,000. But me.................I'm just your regular old Cinderella with my very own Fairy........Mother. Oof I've been babbling. Sorryyyyyyyy. Bu here's a picture so you can see the kind of dresses the debutante's wear here.








But I'm not bitter!

[jazzygirlsings]

If it makes you feel any better, the girls all have horse faces!

Debutante balls? PUHLEASE!

My advice to you...it's better to go it alone and gain the strength you will gain in telling someone to screw off (like your Dad) than to give up your dreams.

Believe me when I tell you that my main source of nutrition for awhile was canned food, ramen, pancakes, spaghetti and the McDonald's value menu! If you budget wisely, you can do anything!

Just stick with your Mom...she sounds like the best lady ever! Seriously, if you have to take extra loans, etc. IT IS WORTH IT NOT TO ASK "WHAT IF?"...Follow your heart.

And when you reach the top, you will appreciate it more! And I have a feeling all your stepsister will have is a $30,000 dress...

[disneybeauty]

My parents were totally unsupportive of me throughout my early career. I joined my first profeesional ballet company at 14, and if I ever got in trouble or stepped out of line, my dad would threaten to make me quit. When I wanted to take voice lessons, my mom said "why, you can't even hum a tune."(Which is now th root of all of my psychoses) When I decided that I wanted to get a degree in dance, he relented a little, but it was only after a phonecall to the dean of the dance department to ask if I really had talent. When I worked at Disneyland, my parents wanted me to quit because it wasn't a real job, and I was getting beat up alot by the guests(it didn't hurt very much).
Now, that I am a mom, wife, and ultrasound technologist, they try to come to every show I do. However, if I don't make the cast in a show they are the first ones to say "well, we told you so, theatre is so wishy-washy". Nevermind my heart breaking . . . .

[sunrae]

[jazzygirlsings]

And, if you moved out here, sunrae...you would have a supportive friend! (ME! LOL!)

And thus, my "evil plan" begins!

[sunrae]

[jazzygirlsings]

Carpe Diem, baby!!!!!!!!!

[InaraSanguine]

My rating for shows is my dad.

If the players manage to make it through the show without my dad falling asleep. The show was good.

My parents come to all my shows at least once, and my sister too. My brother doesn't really enjoy them...but if I have a good part he comes to support me.

[LisaKitty]

[KateyGee]

well my parents are supportive to an extent. they encourage me to try my hardest and they are paying for my voice lessons. they also accept the fact that i will do this after high school regardless.
however even though i have the opportunity to do auditions in NYC even for chorus roles on Broadway, they don't really let me.
they also don't want me to overshadow my school work so I'm limited to one show during the school year and voice.

[InaraSanguine]

[NoOneMournsTheWicked]

[MaryMag]

I was an education major, too! Then I held a few education jobs and realized my idea of teaching was very different from what teaching actually is. 90% is behavior management/keeping your kids in line. You probably spend only 10% of your day actually teaching them something.

My parents are wonderful people; they were just born dirt poor and so they are very afraid of impractical decisions. Plus my mom has a very musical family and she watched several of her sisters try to 'make it' in the singing business and fail. So that discourages her as well. My mom and I actually got in a fight one time after I didn't get cast in a show and she said the same things she always says along the lines of, "Well it just proves that you don't have what it takes." And this was a particularly bad fight because it really wounded my confidence. anyway, the next morning, I found a big long letter on my dresser. My mom wrote it and explained in it why she's so afraid of risk and how much she herself wanted to sing but was always overshadowed by her sisters, who didn't even find success themselves, etc. It almost brought me to tears. Ever since that letter, she has been a little bit better. Or maybe I just see her position better and don't get so upset.

[Theatregeeke]

My parents are supportive of my goals and my majoring in theatre. It's the rest of my family I have to deal with. I have a large, very close extended family, and I'm constantly having to hear things from them. It also doesn't help that for my first year of college I was pre-law. Now I have to constantly hear about the good grades I got in those classes and how I'm wasting my brain by studying theatre.

[InaraSanguine]

I have two cousins who want to be "REAL ACTORS" with such lofty goals as performing Shakespeare somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway, I seem to remember me mentioning to them that my goal was to be on Broadway. In musicals. And they both looked at me like I was a blasphemer and went on for the next hour about how musical theatre wasn't really acting at all.

I never said anything...just left them to their tangent. (Since I wasn't really needed for them to continue their harping.) I kinda wish I'd torn them down to size, but *shrug*

[Theatregeeke]

[Kate_Monster]

[bwayluvor31]

[LesWickedPhantom]

It's actually really comical how unsupportive my mother is of my desire to pursue the performing arts, considering she's the one who's been putting me into dance after voice after acting class/camp since I was very young. Although, it's partially my fault... I don't have the heart to tell my parents I really do want to pursue theater... especially at a place like Tisch or AMDA. My mom assumes I'm major in Education and just do some college plays on the side (along with telling me I'd never make it anyway because I'm nothing amazing). She always makes sure I'm aware of how much she doesn't want to see my shows as well. We always end up getting into screaming fights over buying tickets or something absurd like that, and she'll just decide she won't go (which she does end up going in the end...) It's sad. Although if I don't end up going to Tisch or AMDA, I'll probably double major in theatre and education anyway.

[NoOneMournsTheWicked]

[MaryMag]