When did dancing become something the adults did? You can’t bring kids to a hip-hop club, you’d be turned away at the door! But a contra dance? They are warmly welcomed.
Where dance has cultural importance, the whole family goes dancing. Grandpa, dad, mom, the kids, and even the babies. The kids are good dancers before they hit 12.
Somehow, we started this weird concept of dance “clubs” where children aren’t allowed. They grow up not dancing, and then dancing dies out of the culture when they grow up.
Do your kids a favor, and bring them dancing from the time they can barely walk. They might not be dancing when they turn 14, but you better believe they’ll remember it when they dance with their sweetheart under a warm summer moon.
Never forget the importance of touch. Brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and grandparents and grandchildren and neighbors and visitors and guests and the occasional international transfer student all dancing together; that is dance, and it is very wonderfully human.
Do it in remembrance of the generations before you who created your culture, and brought your family and you into this world.
Dance!