🎷Out of My Head Hopelessly Devoted to You🎻
Every year, around this time, well-meaning aunts, uncles, and grandparents across the nation have the same thought: This is the year I become the cool relative.
And every year, that thought leads directly to the music store, where a shiny harmonica sits in a little velvet-lined box, looking like the gateway to a lifetime of blues riffs and campfire singalongs.
I know this because I've been that mom. I've stood in the checkout line, harmonica in hand, already imagining my son's face lighting up. I pictured him at eighteen, thanking me in his graduation speech for sparking his musical journey. What I did not picture was the harmonica living in a junk drawer by February, nestled between dead batteries and a broken game controller.
Here's what happens when you gift a child an instrument they didn't ask for: nothing. Or worse, something. In my case, the harmonica begat a xylophone the following Christmas. The xylophone begat violin lessons. The violin lessons begat a seven-year-old wedging himself under a chair every Saturday morning to avoid his instructor.
And the thing is, I get it. I remember being young and wishing someone had handed me a saxophone instead of shuttling me to piano lessons. I wanted to be the kid with the interesting instrument, the one that came with a leather case and an attitude. Instead, I learned scales. I resented it for years.
But here's the twist ending nobody warns you about: I can still play the piano. I sat down at one last Thanksgiving and plunked out a passable rendition of something seasonal, and people clapped. Meanwhile, I couldn't tell you which end of a harmonica to blow into. That cool instrument I wished for? It turns out cool is a moving target, and it moves fastest when someone else picks it out for you.
This is the paradox of the instrument gift. The moment an adult decides something is cool enough to give a child, it becomes, by definition, uncool. The harmonica in that velvet box isn't a ticket to musical rebellion. It's homework in disguise, and kids can smell homework from across the room.
So what's the alternative? Let them choose. I know, I know—it sounds less magical than sliding a wrapped present across the table. But magic isn't in the packaging. It's in the kid who begs for a ukulele after hearing one on a TV commercial, or who becomes obsessed with drums after watching a marching band. That obsession, however random or inconvenient, is the thing that actually sticks.
The instrument you pick says something about who you hope they'll become. The instrument they pick says something about who they already are. One of those has a much better chance of surviving past January.
This holiday season, if you're tempted by that harmonica display, I'm not going to stop you. But maybe tuck the receipt in the box. And if you really want to be the cool relative, try this instead: tell them they can pick any instrument they want, and you'll make it happen.
Then brace yourself. It's probably going to be drums.
