Re: Kids at contra dances

The local contra dance offers a family dance periodically, like maybe
once a month.  (I don't know exactly.  I don't have kids and don't
attend.)  This seems to fill the need, as I don't see young children
at their regular dances.  (Maybe the occasional teenager, but not
young children.)  I would suggest this as a solution.

I would also like to mention that I don't consider entirely fair to
the children to mix children and adults in the same dance.  Most
dances are for people of similar size, but adults are often
tremendously larger than children.  This leads to difficult, and
sometimes embarrassing, situations during the dance.  For example, the
little boy who is called upon to take a heavy woman in a promenade
position.  If a skater's hold (hands in front) is used, no problem. 
But I've seen a kid with his right ear against a woman's left hip and
his right arm across her bottom, because she wasn't thoughtful enough
to use a skater's hold.  I don't think it was coincidence that he did
not choose to dance again, that session.

>From my own point of view, I do not choose to dance with children, and
will do so only when the parent's permission is explicit (e.g., if the
parent asks me to), or if I know the parent and know they would want
me to dance with their child.  The sad fact is that the climate has
changed with regard to mentoring children.  There seems to be an
effort being made by some persons to clamp down on any adult-child
physical contact as "abuse."  Unless parental permission is explicit,
a person can find himself in a very difficult legal situation for
"touching" a child.  It simply is not worth it to me to dance with
someone else's child.

Bruce Freeman