Thanks to everyone for all these thoughtful responses. I pretty much agree with everybody who said that having at least one musical endeavor each year should be a requirement, but my ex doesn't agree at all and won't cooperate - in fact he'd undermine me entirely - if I were to operate from that perspective. Something I wonder about is how skewed my perspective is since I'm a musician, and how skewed my ex's is since music represents his loathed and despised ex-wife. ;-)
Last night, my son changed his mind AGAIN, and now wants to take lessons. Interestingly, my ex and I agree that now my son must commit to playing, really practice every day, and must stick with it until the end of the semester. Obviously, he doesn't know exactly what he wants. As I said, he clearly loves to perform, but has to learn to commit to the hard stuff (practicing) along the way. He says he's not interested in any other instruments at this time, BTW. That, and the idea of changing teachers on violin (tho his teacher is terrific) were among the first things I thought of. He has lots of social opportunities outside of music, and in fact, he participates in a group violin class as well as individual lessons where the kids learn quartets and ensemble playing. My husband, stepson, son & I make music together at home. So he gets music no matter what.
Thanks again for your thoughts!
Susan Schneider
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