My daughter performed in her last dance recital Sunday night. As she sashayed and twirled across the stage at Memorial Auditorium, I couldn’t help but shed a few tears for the world she has been immersed in for more than a decade, a world that has helped her blossom into the amazing, confident young woman that she is.

For 15 years, I have been a dance mom. Longer if you count my older daughter’s brief flirtation with the activity that was definitely not for her. But, consistently, I have been a dance mom to my younger daughter, Chloe, who started dance at the tender age of three and never stopped.

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At first, it was just something fun, creative and active to check the extracurricular box. Soon, it became apparent to me that she was in it for the long haul. She started competing at age eight. Watching how she glowed on stage, beaming with a huge smile that took up her entire face, I knew that I too was in it for the long haul.

“I’m going to do this until I’m 18,” she said to me more than once, and I believed her.

She has been competing with the Premier School of Dance in Cary now for 10 years. What she received from the experience was invaluable—self-esteem, confidence, friendship, exercise, and a love of the arts. Everyone has their “thing,” and for my daughter and her friends, dance was their “thing.”

You might be surprised by what I got out of being a dance mom. I’d like to say new skills, like sewing. That would have been helpful, but I didn’t learn how to sew. Nor did I ever learn how to do “dance hair.” Luckily, other mothers along the way helped. Let’s face it, they helped a lot.

What I did learn was that we don’t have to be an expert in an activity to be there for our children—whether it’s organizing their costumes, carpooling to the studio, bringing a meal to them during practice, or just cheering them on from the audience. Extracurriculars allow us to be part of our children’s lives in the most valuable way—as a constant source of love and support.

I truly hope my daughter will continue to dance in college in some capacity if she can figure out how to fit it in because it brings her so much joy. So, while I’m temporarily retiring as a dance mom, I’m waiting in the wings until I’m called upon again. Once a dance mom, always a dance mom ...

Amanda is the mom of two, a reporter for WRAL-TV and the author of several books including some on motherhood. Find her here on Mondays.