On Katy Perry and the like...

My Boy-o loves Katy Perry.  Loves her.  LOVES her.  I do not love Katy Perry.  Um, emphatically.  (I have a rant, which I will mostly leave out, which involves the line "I kissed a girl and I liked it... because my boyfriend liked it more" etc., which mainly involves my general disgust at her exploiting queer culture for shock value in order to make mucho money.  Anyhoo - I digress).

This morning, when one of her songs came on the radio, he announced dreamily:  "Ohhhh Katy Perry is my favourite."  And then added beseechingly "Maybe someday YOU will love Katy Perry too, Mama."  Fat chance.  And it's not just Katy Perry.  Boy-o loves all pop music, some good stuff, some really, really bad stuff.   And it is all my fault.  Well - mostly, anyways. 

I used to be one of those good parents whose kids only listened to age-appropriate children's music (much of which made me want to stab my eyeballs out as much as Katy Perry, so there ya go).  But then, my dear Boy-o was allowed to play around in the front seat one day whilst his mommy was cleaning out the garage.  And at the end of said exciting adventure, there were many coins in our cars cd player.  No more cd player in the car.  No problem!  We still have the trusty old IPOD, right?  Except then, then, Girlio broke the IPOD dock.  And then the IPOD itself died.  And said circumstances ushered in the era of only being able to listen to the radio while in the car (which we spend an almost alarming amount of time in, I'm sorry to say).

And then there's Glee.  L. and I are total Glee lovers.  True story.  And because Boy-o is such a music lover, such a theatrical dude, and general performer, one day we got the bright idea of letting him watch some Glee  performances on Youtube.  And he was instantaneously hooked.  It's like crack for him.  Singing and dancing four year old crack.  He knows most of the characters names (and is, at the moment, particularly in love with Artie).  Anyways - Glee introduced Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" and is the entire reason my four year old might spontaneously burst into song lyrics such as "I'll let you put your hands on me in my skintight jeans, be your teenage dream tonight..."  Mmmmhmmmm.  Super innappropriate, a little disturbing, and yet,somehow arrestingly cute at the same time. 

And though I'm a total nerd and a CBC diehard - I don't listen to CBC when the smalls are in the car because I don't think they need to listen to the news of death and general world destruction.  So L. and I found the least obnoxious radio station we could, and Boy-o became a pop-listenin' machine.  And we continued on in our apparent quest to become bad, bad parents.

There have been some notably fun (pride filled) moments to our radio listening sojourns, such as when Boy-o heard  the openning bars to "I Love Rock 'n Roll" and shouted: "That's Joan Jett.  She's a real rocker!!!"  How can you not love that?!  We've also discovered during this journey that Boy-o's ability to recognize music phrasing and sounds is pretty amazing. 

And still - there's a large part of me that squirms every morning when my sweet four year old shouts out lyrics that are 1. often just plain bad, and 2. really not at all age-appropriate. 

"Mama, mama!!  Is that Bon Jovi?" 
"Mama - it's Michael Buble!" 
"We can't get out of the car until Wady Gaga is finished!  She is my favourite and my best!"
"Maroon 5 is so good!"

Once again, it seems that I'm the parent I used to judge.  Oh yes I am.