My Life as a Mommy Rockstar

By Rivki Silver

Rivki Silver is a mama with many hats.  When she's not spending time with her two boys and husband, she can be found writing, arranging and performing music; teaching piano lessons; blogging at lifeinthemarriedlane.com and mainly trying to keep it all together.  She can currently be found in Cleveland, OH.

"Can you imagine being in the public eye all the time?  

Oh, wait, we kind of are like that … as parents!"

My Life as a Mommy Rockstar

I didn’t realize that it was going to make me famous.  It started off as six women who liked to play music getting together once a week, working on some songs and having fun.   Then we started getting some gigs, you know, playing Melava Malkas for parent-teacher events, or for society events for the older ladies in the community.  While these were paying gigs (sweet!), it wasn’t like I was a household name or anything.

Then we started planning our big concert.  We had committees, we had many, many, mannnny rehearsals.  We had staging, choreography, costume changes, guest artists.  We had a professional sound tech and videographer.  We had major publicity.

Still, we weren’t sure how the whole thing was going to turn out.  Would the weather cooperate?  Would people want to come out when there were a lot of other events around that time?  Would people enjoy themselves?

Well.

The tickets started selling.  And selling.  And selling!  A couple days before the concert, we realized that we had sold out.  Did I mention that it was before the concert?  Whoa!  This was beyond our wildest expectations.   And the pressure was on.

Baruch Hashem, the concert went amazingly well.  There were no major glitches.  We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  The audience was great, and the night ended on a euphoric high. 

Then it started happening.  I would be out in public, and someone I didn’t know would say, “Oh, are you Rivki Silver?”  Or, they would ask my name and when I told them, they would say, “Oh, *you’re* Rivki Silver, the musician.”

It was a little surreal, I have to say. 

It got me thinking about people who live their life in the public eye.  You know, Rebbetzins, principals, directors of organizations.  It’s not so simple to have your life put “out there.”  For a little while after my concert, I found myself scrutinizing different decisions I made, as if they somehow had more weight now (which they probably didn’t.  I was just me feeling self-important, but, hey, it was a heady time).

Can you imagine being in the public eye all the time?  Oh, wait, we kind of are like that … as parents! 

We are rock stars to our kids (well, until they’re teenagers, and then I think we’re just embarrassments).  Our decisions really, really matter to them.  They are learning about how to behave by watching us.  Like I learn from my role models, my children learn from me. They learn about marriage, about family, about eating, sleeping, everything! 

Now that the hullabaloo surrounding the concert has subsided, I’m happy to just be recognized as “Moshe’s Mommy.”  That’s enough of a rock-star life for me.