{"id":396,"date":"2017-06-04T20:08:32","date_gmt":"2017-06-05T03:08:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joesays.ca\/?p=396"},"modified":"2017-06-04T20:13:52","modified_gmt":"2017-06-05T03:13:52","slug":"should-i-go-or-should-i-stay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/?p=396","title":{"rendered":"should i go or should i stay"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A couple of years ago I was attending reception during a client\u2019s sales convention and a few of their customers dropped by to socialise.\u00a0 One of them was a bit late, he explained, because he\u2019d just come from escorting his pre-teen daughter to an Ariana Grande concert.<\/p>\n

Yeah, you probably already know where this is going.\u00a0 But stick with me.<\/p>\n

First off, I had no idea who Ariana Grande was; our tardy guest explained.\u00a0 She was a former kids\u2019 TV show performer who was now making a name for herself as a pop star.\u00a0 Her favoured demo was young teen and preteen girls, and this guy\u2019s daughter was nuts about her.\u00a0 When she heard AG was coming to town, she begged to go.\u00a0 At this juncture, the parents had something of a disagreement.<\/p>\n

The mother\u2019s instinct was to protect <\/em>the child: you\u2019re too young to go to a concert, there\u2019s all kinds of bad influences, it\u2019s a school night, etc etc.<\/p>\n

The father\u2019s inclination was to prepare <\/em>her: yeah, at some point you\u2019re going to go to concerts so let\u2019s get you started with a nice safe experience that you can enjoy without too many edges or obstacles.\u00a0 He prevailed, and off they went.<\/p>\n

By his account, the evening was a smash.\u00a0 The show was great, Ariana shone, his daughter was ecstatic.\u00a0 Having delivered her safely home to a relieved mom, he joined us to recount the tale.\u00a0 A great evening, a memorable experience for his daughter, and a wonderful bonding moment for the two of them.\u00a0 He could not have been happier with the way things turned out.\u00a0 And rightfully so.<\/p>\n

A few days ago, Ariana Grande came back onto my \u2013 and everyone else\u2019s \u2013 radar.<\/p>\n

As the awful news from Manchester permeated every newsfeed, I could not help but remember that proud, happy dad, and his empowered, delighted daughter, and ponder how differently the parents and children at the Manchester show must feel about their experience.<\/p>\n

As parents, we accept there is an element of risk in everything we encourage our children to do.\u00a0 To avoid it entirely is to avoid living, life. But attending a pop concert should not be a risky experience.\u00a0 It should not involve weighing the options of \u2018you might have a great time\u2019 with \u2018you might die\u2019.<\/p>\n

How, in this age, do we make it less so?\u00a0 How, I wonder, do we teach our children to trust, to take risks, to be adventurous, when such perils await in the most unexpected places?\u00a0 Like the parents of our young fan, I waver between protect and prepare.\u00a0 I have no easy answer.<\/p>\n

But I do applaud Ms Grande\u2019s response: after cancelling a couple of shows in the days following the Manchester gig, largely out of compassion for the victims, she staged a defiant response to the terror and mounted a massive, star-studded benefit concert \u2013 in Manchester \u2013 mere days later. \u00a0To her, and all the other music mega-stars who joined her on that stage, I doff my hat. Your message was clear: the music will go on. Life will go on.\u00a0 And almost always, almost almost almost always, you\u2019ll come away from an Ariana Grande show with a mile wide smile on your face.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a risk worth taking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of years ago I was attending reception during a client\u2019s sales convention and a few of their customers dropped by to socialise.\u00a0 One of them was a bit late, he explained, because he\u2019d just come from escorting his pre-teen daughter to an Ariana Grande concert. Yeah, you probably already know where this is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts","category-filosofy-c","category-rants","category-raves"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=396"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":400,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions\/400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}