Bad mommy

I was standing in a stark Russian courtroom, waiting for the judge to return and declare my daughter’s adoption legal, when I heard the devastating news. Through my translator, I had told the orphanage director that I planned to give the Chicklet ballet lessons just as soon as we got back to the States.

“Don vaste your money,” she answered. “Dees beby veel not be ballet dancer.”

“Oh. How about gymnastics?”

“Nyet,” she clicked.

“Ice-skating?”

The director shrugged and gave me the two-handed “feh” sign, but I remained undaunted. My daughter would one day appear onstage. Some would question my motives, but I’ve already done the therapy so I’ll save you the time.

Yes, as a child I wanted to be a famous dancer. But back in the 1970s, when I attended P.S. 175 in Queens, ballet lessons were considered an extravagance. For a while, Shirley Temple became my virtual dance instructor. On Saturday mornings, I would put on my Mary Janes and follow her every move on TV. When Bill “Bojangles” Robinson taught her how to tap up a flight of stairs in The Little Colonel, I was right there with her, scuffing up the parquet and annoying the downstairs neighbors. My dream died in high school, when the production of South Pacific I’d been cast in was canceled for lack of funding.

But here, finally, was a second chance at fame. In the Chicklet’s first year as an American toddler, I dressed her in frilly, tutu-like dresses, which made her resemble Miss Temple—a major upgrade from my own gene pool. I taught her golden-age ditties like “Animal Crackers in My Soup” and signed her up for old Hollywood’s triple play—ballet, gymnastics and ice-skating.

She was miserable. Finally, her ballet teacher, a lovely Broadway chorus boy, handed me the news: The Chicklet had zero interest in executing the perfect plié. I had to come to terms with the fact that my Shirley Templova would not be sailing to stardom on the Good Ship Lollipop.