Mere moments ago, I was surfing the net in front of the TV. As I surfed, I heard this on TV: “I love Justin Bieber so much! I want him to marry me!”
When I looked up, I saw a 10-year-old girl crying her friggin eyes out, hanging over the edge of a fence along some red carpet in California. She was wailing the wail of someone who’s just lost a loved one. It was, in a word, disturbing.
As I looked at this little girl, I instantly flashed-back to elementary school. I was reminded of the intense affection the girls in my elementary school felt towards members of New Kids on the Block. One girl I knew wanted to marry Jordan Knight, and another wanted to marry Joey McIntyre.
Then, I had a weird flash-forward, in which I saw my little Pea 8 years from now, begging me to take her to a still-unknown-teen-stars’ concert or MuchMusic appearance (do teen stars still appear on MuchMusic… come to think of it, does MuchMusic still exist?).
I’m writing this now, in the hopes that one day I can come back and prove myself wrong. I DON’T THINK I WILL BE ABLE TO DO IT.
I don’t think I will be able to watch her sink all of her emotional energy into someone she doesn’t even know. I don’t think I will be able to stand by her side as she wails for some floppy teenaged star to simply look at her. More to the point, I don’t think I will be ale to handle the crushing disappointment and sadness that she will experience if said floppy star fails to give her the attention she needs.
I want my little girl to know that she should never have to beg for the attention and affection of another human being.
Sure, there will be people in her life, that she may want attention from, which is not reciprocated. Probably from some stupid boy in the future who doesn’t know a good thing when he sees it. This will be tough for Pea to swallow. But I will do everything in my power to show her that if some boy can’t see how special she is, he isn’t worth the effort.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not under the impression that I won’t find myself at some boy band or teeny-bopper concerts in the future. Any sensible father to a little girl is kidding himself if he doesn’t acknowledge this reality.
But to those ‘stars’ who dare grab the eye of my little girl, be forewarned – if you dare pass us by as we wait for you in some line-up, two things will happen….
1) You will receive some serious bad juju and cut-eye from yours truly
2) We won’t give a damn, because you aren’t worth it anyway – and the posters are coming off the wall.
PS – I’ve got nothing against Justin Bieber… honest!
I wonder how popular justin bieber would be if he was fat??
LOL, it’s too cute. I’m not laughing at you, Sean, but the reality will probably a lot different than you imagine. You will do such a good job raising Pea that she won’t go nuts over the likes of Justin Bieber.
For the record, my girls (9.5 and 7) *detest* the Bieb, which is not to say that they don’t have their own obsessions. My 9.5 year old wants to see P!NK and Katy Perry in concert (a whole other level of worry there) and had a very strange obsession with Gollum in Lord of the Rings (don’t ask). But she was also very soundly on Team Edward and would buy those little teenie-bopper mags all last summer and cut out his picture. So some of that pop culture stuff gets through, but with her own personal twist.
My guess is that Pea will of course have her little tweenie crushes, but you’ll look upon them indulgently and smile, paying for the Tiger Beats and taking her to horrible movies and maybe even a few concerts. And you’ll probably love every minute of it!
I was in love wiht tennis players….and I wanted to invite Boris Becker over for dinner to our house…so my mom took me to his hotel in Ottawa, and I waited, and waited…and probably cried. And yeah he didn’t come for dinner – but I have an awesome memory of a great moment in motherhood from my mom. Just you wait…