It happened when A was 5.  I went in for a parent teacher conference and another teacher approached me in the hall.  I am A’s music teacher.  Did you know your daughter can sing? So I started paying attention.  A really could sing.  Her music teacher practically became a member of our family, giving my daughter singing lessons, extra encouragement.  Then our district cut gym, library, art and music.  A still sang, she sang the national anthem at school events, sang at the holiday assembly, sang at church.  My mom saw a call for auditions in our local paper at a community theater.  We asked A if she wanted to try out.  The audition was for the lead female child role but we figured at least she would get the experience of auditioning.  A few days later we got the call she didn’t get that role but another role.  She attended every audition.  I told the director I didn’t feel an 8 year old should be out past 9pm on school nights.  As the rehearsals went on I realized I was not like the other people in the play.  When they offered for A to do curtain call, requiring her to stay till 10 or 11pm when the show ended on Thursday, Friday and Saturday I said no.  She did her scene and we went home. The show began and I noticed other adults yelling at my child.  I wanted her to do theater to have fun.  So tonight she went down with the other actors and kids.  I stayed waiting for her in an upstairs room.  The actors came up and my daughter said she had to go to the bathroom.  A few minutes went by.  A few more went by.  I went to the bathroom and kept banging.  She finally came out, crying and shaking.  I practically screamed, “what the hell happened”?

So she began the story, another child, who had been in several productions was talking to her.  There was a big ladder on the stage and A said, that would be cool if you could climb it up into the sky(I freakin love my kid and her imagination) And he said, its bad luck to walk under a ladder.  And its bad luck if you have a bucket of water and walk under a ladder and its really bad luck if you say Macbeth in a theater.  A looked at him and said “MacBev?”  All the grownups looked at her.  The male director came and took her and the boy into the alley outside the theater and yelled at them.  He made them spin 3 times in a circle.  Then he made them spit.

As she told me this she said all the adults in the theater were talking about her.  She didn’t know what she said or what it meant.  I didn’t even know what it meant.  So I googled it.  I held my crying little girl while I cried that grown adults felt they had any right to yell at her, or treat her like this.  Especially when I was right there.  I would discipline my own child but superstition is not something to discipline her for.  So basically this phrase curses the play.  So if you are superstitious and an 8 year old child mispronounces a word and has no idea what it means, you should take her outside, yell at her and make her do something crazy?  Doesn’t this go against every thing I teach them?  Don’t go with strangers.  Don’t trust adults you don’t know well even if they are a teacher, a coach.  If someone tells you to go with them no matter what, don’t go.  Always tell mommy when something bad happens. So I took her home.  And she is still upset.  And I am so disgusted.  Disgusted with people.  Disgusted with myself.