7 Reasons Why We Don’t Do Santa at Our House

Even back then, I knew Santa was creepy AF.

(Image is of the author, as a toddler girl. She sits
on the lap of a man dressed as Santa, with a white
beard and red holiday hat. The toddler has dark
blonde hair with a white barrette in it. She wears
blue pants with a floral-patterned top featuring
a blue bow. The child looks frightened, and
is crying.)

I’ve come across an increasing number of folks who literally can’t believe that Santa never makes an appearance at my house, and that we don’t lead our children to believe that Santa is real.

Sure... they can’t believe that, but expect their kids to believe that a jolly old elf makes a trip around the world in about twelve hours, and sneaks into children’s homes.

Here’s the thing. There are a number of reasons why Santa isn’t a “thing” at my house:

1. I DON’T LIE TO MY CHILDREN.

Let me just get that out of the way, first. I don’t lie to my children.

I need my children to trust me. I need them to believe I’ll always tell them the truth, when they come to me with questions.

Maybe telling the truth is paramount in my house because of my children’s history (most of my children come from hard places), but there it is.

They have questions about their history, and that's expected. I want them to know that they can ask me anything -- absolutely anything -- and I will tell them the truth, at an age-appropriate level.

I also want them to know and understand that the truth is the expectation in our home. I want and need them to be honest with me, too.

Lying to children for fun, or to create a sense of “magic,” or out of a need for tradition is still lying.

We create our own magic. We create our own traditions. And that magic, those traditions, come from a place of trust.



2. SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, IS GOING TO TELL THEM.

It’s inevitable that any secret I would try to keep from my kids is going to come out, at some time.

I’d much rather have them learn the truth from me, than for them to feel like I’ve lied to them, and that they can’t trust me.

Funnily enough, we had the opposite happen, when a teacher told Curlytop that Santa was real, and that her parents were lying to her when we said he’s not.

Let me tell you, stern words were had. A lot of them.

I had to explain to the school that when adults tell children that their parents are liars, it grooms the child for abuse, because it conveys that the child can’t trust their parent.

Yes, I just mentioned abuse in a discussion about Santa. I sure did.

Because when children are told “secrets” by adults they can’t share with their parents — no matter how small, it opens the door for adults with ill intent to isolate children, and ask them to keep bigger “secrets.”



3. MY KIDS ARE SUPER LITERAL.

Taking things literally sort of comes with the territory in a house where autism rules supreme, but let me just say that the idea of someone seeing me when I’m sleeping is pretty firetrucking creepy.

A lot of the whole Santa sham is about covert surveillance and someone coming into your home without getting caught.

I mean, really.

As an adult, that scares the hell out of me, and I don't even care about getting presents.

4. I WANT MY KIDS TO EXPRESS THEIR EMOTIONS.

“You’d better not cry; you’d better not pout.”

You can’t lay out the Santa ruse without admitting that a lot of songs and stories have already been written, chronicling how the whole Santa gig works.

And this song? This one tells kids they need to stuff their emotions, because Santa is watching.

If my kids are having big feelings, I’m much more interested in learning what is causing them than having kids stuff their feelings for the sake of the creepy old guy who is spying on them.

I mean, let them worry about Google snooping, and their tablets tracking their location, and Amazon feeding them ads based upon their browsing history. Those are REAL things to be worried about.

Am I right?

5. I DON’T NEED TO LEVERAGE GIFT-RECEIVING TO ENFORCE BEHAVIOR EXPECTATIONS.

I give my children gifts because I love them. It’s not conditional upon them being “nice” instead of “naughty.”

Love isn’t conditional. I don’t only love them when they’re being “good.” I love them because they’re my children.



6. DISAPPOINTMENT SHOULD NOT BE PARALLEL TO BEING “NAUGHTY.”

When kids believe that writing a letter to Santa and being “good” will score them whatever they’ve requested, it sets them up to think they just weren’t “good” enough when it doesn’t materialize.

That year when we were losing our house? That year? No amount of “goodness” would have made an Xbox materialize on Christmas morning, and it had nothing to do with behavior. It was all about finances.



7. SANTA PLAYS FAVORITES, AND IT’S ALL ABOUT SOCIOECONOMIC PRIVILEGE.

How do we explain — if Santa brings toys to “all the good girls and boys” — that children who don’t get gifts from Santa are still good?

How do we explain that Jimmy, who got gum and an orange from Santa, is just as “good” and worthy as Joey, who got a new iPad from Santa?


So... there it is. Seven of the reasons why we don't do Santa at our house.

What do you do at your house? Are you about Santa, or nah? Why, or why not?


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Can't Argue with Pre-K Logic

I don’t know what I’d do without Curlytop and Snugglebug. They always have an explanation for things which might otherwise confound the world.

When reminded they can’t play outside alone, my faith-filled girls assure me, “It’s okay, Mama. God is with me.” Um, no. I follow too many missing children cases to let my little ones wander beyond the front door without the watchful eye of a Trusted Big Person.

Interestingly, inside the house, those same girls won’t even go to the bathroom alone, never mind pick up their room without an adult hovering over them. The tune quickly changes to, “I need you to come with me! God isn’t with me—I can’t feel him!” Now, I’m not a theologian, but I suspect my wee philosophers are simply seeking my attention.

My insistence that certain activities are for grown-ups only has finally sunk in, ensuring Curlytop and Snugglebug understand there are just some things that can’t be tackled until they’re older. Driving, for example. In fact, the girls are so accepting of the concept they’ve decided to selectively apply it to other activities, as well. The other day, I tried to coax Curlytop into trying a new dish. “I’ll do it later, Mama,” she said. “Like, when I’m a grown-up.”

Our mild and sweetly aging family dog, Perseus, went missing the other day. For the record, he’s never lived up to the image of his adventuring, battling namesake. He’s what we call a “watch dog.” In the event of a burglary, Perseus would assuredly “watch” the perp haul off the stereo, the television, the computer…

Anyway, we searched and searched for our loyal canine, calling and whistling for him outside, walking through the house to scout where he may be hiding. A minute short of calling Animal Control, fearing he’d wandered off, I walked into Curlytop and Snugglebug’s bedroom. They both looked completely angelic and nonchalant, watching a video. Too angelic, in fact. “Girls, have you seen Perseus?” I asked. They glanced at one another before answering, in unison, “No, Mama.”

I turned to leave, and heard a muffled scratching sound. “What’s that noise?” I asked. Curlytop and Snugglebug both shrugged their shoulders, turning their attention back to the movie. As the scratching grew more urgent, I followed the sound to the closet. I turned the knob, pulled the door open, and struggled to keep my footing as Perseus burst out, nearly knocking me over.

“How did Perseus get in the closet?” I demanded.

Curlytop shrugged her shoulders again, but Snugglebug cleared up any speculation with a wide-eyed explanation of astonishment. “It must be magic! Perseus is a magician! Isn’t that cool, Mama?”

Cool, indeed. I must be the only pet owner in the world with a magical dog who not only disappears himself, but also traps himself in closets.

Speaking of pets, Mr. Wright recently “fished” a piece of chewing gum out of our aquarium. The reason the gum ended up at the bottom of the tank? “Fish love to blow bubbles.”

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“My Dad has a Yacht of Girls”

Curlytop and Snugglebug have made great strides in their language development since we first consulted with a speech therapist over three years ago. Still, there are some words they use which can only be understood by family; and Curlytop still serves as a Snugglebug-to-English translator all too often.

Music Store Bob’s wife, Brenda, watched the girls one night while Waterdog, the band featuring Bob and Mr. Wright, played a local venue. She commented on the girls’ speech patterns, likening it to “twin speak.” Even though Curlytop and Snugglebug are thirteen months apart, they function pretty much like twins, and they do appear to have words that they use exclusively with one another. This phenomenon of secret or made-up language is called “idioglossia.” When it occurs in twins, it’s known as “cryptophasia.”

Some of their speech, though, is just difficult to understand. They’re speaking English, but the average listener can’t decipher it. Since I’m their mom, I consider myself to be an above average listener, and I’m often able to simultaneously translate for the listener as the words come out of my girls’ mouths.

For example, “chex monks” are not cereal friars, but chipmunks. “Hizzards” are scissors, but the singular form, “hizzard” is a lizard. A “jam witch” is a sandwich, whether or not it’s made with jam (which is actually “jwelly”); though it’s often made with “pea gut bunner.”

Toward the end of the month, the girls eat a lot of pea gut bunner jam witches, but when payday comes around, they’re living high on the hog with pea gut bunner and jwelly jam witches.

A “cow; oaty” is obviously a coyote, and “a yacht” is simply a phrase meaning many; a lot. Therefore, the statement “My dad has a yacht of girls” really just refers to his five daughters, who don’t even come close to filling up a yacht – not that we have one to fill, anyway.

Then, too, are the words that are spoken plainly, but signify something other than their original meaning. A “princess” is a dress, no matter the royal status or title of the young lady wearing it. “Cow,” not to be confused with “cow; oaty,” refers to beef or anything resembling it and intended for consumption. A “wiggle” is any skirt that provides a beautiful swish when the wearer wiggles her groove thang, and “break-uh-ull” (breakable) refers to anything they aren’t allowed to touch.

Okay, maybe that last one is my fault.

I’ve provided my little ones with many terms that have become commonplace in their language, such as “coffee,” which indicates any beverage Mommy is allowed to drink but they aren’t (I thought “Southern Comfort” a little too formal) and “working,” which is anything Mommy is doing at the computer that she doesn’t want interrupted.

Because, you know, “Facebook” is a pretty complex concept to explain to a preschooler.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kygp/2868456244

Bad Gratitude Monday: A Fearless Kid

I spent the summer of 1994 in the library at Fairchild Air Force Base, where Pockets's dad was stationed, because I was 19 years old, enormously pregnant, and on a quest to read every book on pregnancy and childbirth that the United States military saw fit to stack on its shelves.

Plus, the library was air-conditioned.

I read about preterm births. I read about birth defects. I taught myself Lamaze. I read What to Expect When You're Expecting enough times to not expect anything at all, and Birth After Cesarean - even though I knew I'd never be pregnant again, no matter how the kid came out. Some of the books were downright terrifying, with entire chapters written solely to keep me awake at night, worrying myself into a case of hemorrhoids. Those were the "syndrome" chapters. Down's Syndrome. Fragile X Syndrome. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Floppy Infant Syndrome...

One night, Pockets's dad came home to find his wife, curled around her beachball of a stomach, sobbing. "What if the baby is autistic?" I hiccupped through tears.

"Even worse," he countered, "what if the baby is artistic?"

My list of worries was long, and included:

• The baby could be born early. (About two weeks past my due date, I remembered this fear with great fondness.)
• The baby could fail to develop a hand or a foot. Later, after a particularly bad dream brought on by a combination of nectarines, Swiss cheese and jalepenos on Melba toast, I became convinced the baby would be born without a nose.
• The baby could be abducted by aliens for biological research or, conversely, wasn't even my baby but an alien experiment growing in the petri dish that was my uterus. (Everyone worries about this, right? I'm not alone... right?)
• The baby could look like that guy from Mask.
• After watching Alex: The Life of a Child, I was sure the baby would have cystic fibrosis.
• After watching the Adam Walsh story, I began to wonder why I was even going through this prenancy to birth a child that would be abducted and murdered, anyway.

Pockets's dad disconnected the television and revoked my library card.

Pockets was born, albeit nearly a month late, without complications. He was a beautiful, fully-formed newborn with a healthy scream and a nonstop appetite. I've been smothering him ever since.

Perhaps it's the result of having a worrier for a mom, but Pockets has not, traditionally, been a brave child. Maybe hearing "What if you get hurt?" "Don't touch that - you don't know where it's been!" and "Don't let anyone steal you!" over and over again during his formative years made him overly cautious.

Then again, this is a kid who held out for three and a half weeks past my due date to venture into the world, so maybe Nature wins over Nurture in this particular case. Suffice it to say Pockets has not been the most fearless child I've ever known.

He entered kindergarten a full year early with a tested vocabulary of twelve and a half years. Although he easily held his own academically, he was younger and smaller than the kids in his social circle, and I began to wonder if I'd made the right decision in petitioning for his early entry to school.

When he played on his first tee-ball team, his age and lack of physical maturity showed. The other kids had an entire year of running, throwing and catching on him, and some of the kids had athletically gifted parents who pitched balls to them in the backyard, elevating them to mini Ichiros who didn't need no stinkin' tee when batting.

Poor Pockets. He had a mom whose greatest athletic ability was running up and down the stairs of the restaurant she waited tables at, and - on a good day - not falling on her face.

He was such a beautiful, strange child; sensitive and creative, slight and undeveloped.

My first lesson in letting my kid grow wings and risk falling came during a teeball matchup with a team of steroid-injected first-graders (THEIR moms clearly let them drink the bovine growth hormone milk) coached by a Lou Piniella clone. "My kids don't use a tee," he scoffed, "but if your kids want to, we won't object."

Twelve little first-grade heads huddled with their coach - Pockets included. "Our kids won't use a tee either," announced our coach.

"Are you sure?" I cried. I pulled Pockets aside. "Honey, I know you've never hit a pitch before, and I don't want you to feel pressured. The name of this game is teeball, and if you want to use the tee, you needn't be embarrassed."

Pockets shook his head. "Mom, I can do this."

I held my breath as he got up to bat. The coach pitched the ball. Pockets swung, and missed. Another pitch; another miss. As the third pitch was released, I prepared my best "Good try, Pockets!" as he swung... and made contact.

Base hit!

This year, Pockets earned his first football letter, along with his team's Most Improved award. He turned out for track this spring, even though Driver's Ed got him up at 5:30 every morning. Then, he came home a few weeks ago and announced he's going to enroll in college next year, weeks before his 16th birthday.

"What about football?" I asked. "What about track? You'll need to be preparing for the SATs pretty soon, and..."

"Mom, I can do this," he assured me.

And really, I know he can.

I dropped Pockets off this morning to take his placement tests for Running Start. If all goes well, he'll be entering college at the same time he begins his junior year of high school.

Today, I am grateful for a kid who, in spite of having a mother who eats What If for breakfast and washes it down with a double shot of I'm Not So Sure About That, has become fearless.

What are YOU grateful for today?

Photos:
1) Pockets and Mama gun down bogeys at the National Air and Space Museum - armed and dangerous (and our fingers are loaded, too!)
2) The dynamic duo goofs off in a Metro tunnel
3) Pockets, in football mode (c) Parson's Photography

Orange You Glad I Didn't Say "Banana?"

This is the dawning of the Age of the Knock-Knock Joke
the Age of the Knock-Knock Joke

the Age of the Knock-Knock Joooooooke...

And so, it begins.

At the age of four, Pockets started making up his own knock-knock jokes. They were really good, too, like:

Knock-knock!

Who's there?

Moo!

Moo who?

It's me, A COW! *cracks self up*

I don't remember the knock-knock jokes that Pepper and GirlWonder used to tell at that age, but I'm pretty sure the punchlines involved the physical act of biting the "Who's there?" party. My girls were biters. They were pretty serious about it, too, achieving a lifetime forty percent return on attempts to draw blood.

Their middle school vampire-worshiping friends would be impressed!

Now, it's Curlytop's time. She hasn't quite picked up on the give-and-take line delivery yet, but she's getting the idea...

Knock-knock!

Who--

IT'S ME!

It's me, wh--

Oh, look! Grandma's here! *cracks self up*

Photo credits:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wafflechomper/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

http://www.flickr.com/photos/artolog/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

What's YOUR favorite knock-knock joke?

The Curse of the Mothers

(Yeah, that's me. That photo was taken in May of my senior year of high school. What a hottie, huh?)

When I was about sixteen years old, my mother expressed her earnest desire that, someday, I would have a daughter just like me. I wish I could say that her statement was a well-wishing of sorts; that I was a model child and the greatest possible blessing my mother could bestow upon me was her hope that I, too, would someday parent such a virtuous daughter.

Sadly, the truth is that I was a rebellious, defiant teen with a vulgar mouth and a temper that erupted like buckshot, peppering and wounding anyone within projectile distance. When my mother said, “I hope you have a daughter just like you, someday,” it wasn’t a good thing.
It was the Curse.

The Curse has plagued my maternal family tree for generations, and the catalyst for its invocation seems, routinely, to be a matriarch finally reaching the end of her proverbial rope. Muttered in quiet moments of desperation or shouted in a fiery rage, the Curse is utterly irrevocable and completely effective.

My great-grandmother took no chances when it came to spiritual warfare. She refused to allow even a deck of playing cards into her home, as cards of any type are, clearly, instruments of the devil. (An insanely ironic but fun fact about my great-grandmother is that she was known to read tea leaves, and by all accounts, was quite accurate. Let’s review: Divination is bad, unless it takes the form of reading tea leaves.) Devout Christian that she was, my great-grandmother sought to raise my grandmother with the purest of hearts and to keep her safe from the ever-present devil that, to this day, lurks behind every tree and around every corner.

Had my great-grandmother not been so stubborn, she would have literally died of horror when my teenaged grandmother asked permission to go to the community social. After all, there was to be dancing, and Lord knows – the devil loves to dance. Confident that her sweet, properly-raised daughter would make the decent and Godly decision, Great-Grandma said, “I’m not going to tell you that you can’t go, but I want you to know that if the good Lord comes back to Earth while you’re in there dancing, He’s not going to come in after you!”

My grandmother danced not only that night, but many more besides. She eventually went on to win the local “Charleston” competition three years in a row – because she could perform the entire dance on her toes! No one is certain of the precise moment Great-Grandma uttered the Curse, but it is largely accepted that the breaking point may have been a photo and newspaper article about the local “dancing girl” star.

Grandma, having narrowly escaped the fires of hell, grew to raise three daughters herself. My mother, a teenager in the heyday of the micro-mini, fulfilled the prophecy of the Curse by challenging her mother’s hemline requisites and—hold on to your pillbox hat, Grandma—riding around on the back of her boyfriend’s motorcycle. The Curse was handed down in short order, as you can imagine.

And then, there was me, by far the worst of them all. I was a sullen, brooding teen who cursed like a trucker, snuck out to get drunk and smoke pot with boys and insisted on sending my allowance to Greenpeace. I got in trouble for stealing a school vehicle (it really was just a misunderstanding) and elevated mother-daughter conflict to new heights.

One night, I came home puking-drunk (Lord help me, it was actually Mad Dog). As my mom held my hair back, she unleashed the condemnation of the Curse, willing that I, too, should have a daughter so reckless. I deserved such a fate, after all I put my mother through.

As luck would have it, my body decided, after the birth of my son, that it would not tolerate any more childbearing. I’d done it! After generations, I’d beat the curse! There would be no “daughter just like you” for me, because I wouldn’t have a daughter at all!

It’s a long story, but today, I have five daughters… The Curse lives on.

Mommy is NOT a Jungle Gym

Just a note to my two beautiful toddlers: Mommy is not a jungle gym.

Oh, sure... Mommy's body may be solid and rail-thin, but let's not get her confused with the monkey bars.

While I'm at it, I'd like to clear up a few other misunderstandings...

To my pre-teen girls: Mommy is not a laundry service.

The fact that you did not put your clothes away and, instead, "stored" them on the floor does not mean Mommy is going to be sympathetic to the seven loads of laundry you toted to the laundry room. Laura Ingalls probably did her own laundry at age 11, and so can you.

To my teen boys: Mommy is not a rocket scientist, nor your personal secretary.

The fact that you failed to start your science project until 10:00 p.m. the night before it was due does not mean Mommy considers staying up until 1:30 a.m. to record the results of your experiment "quality time."

To my teen daughter: Mommy is not the Wicked Bitch of the West.

Enough said.

To my husband: Mommy is not going be your "naughty nurse."

Well... not again, anyway...

Wife, Mother… Exhibitionist

To date, I have subjected three generations of Wright men to the horror of my naked body. My husband, the middle Wright, seems unharmed by the experience, but it’s unlikely that the eldest and youngest of the clan escaped permanent scarring. Neighbors, parcel deliverymen and some unsuspecting Jehovah’s Witnesses have also been victimized, but I don’t share a dinner table with any of them, so I can’t comment on their respective rehabilitations.

Three years ago, we adopted a Lab puppy. My husband had expressed a desire for “a good hunting dog,” and I’d found the perfect candidate. His name was Rufus, and he resided with a Slovakian foster family. There were problems, of course. First, Rufus was a rescue, and we didn’t know much about his history, except that he had been taken from a drug addict. Second, Rufus spoke Slovak fluently, but pretended not to understand English commands at all. Finally, Rufus’s mind operated on an intellectual level so high that we mere humans remained blind to his devious plots until it was too late.

Of course, it is entirely possible that Rufus simply had one too many hits off the crack pipe in his first home. He was anxious and high-strung, and when the prescribed “doggy downers” didn’t work, we resorted to gulping them down ourselves and hiding behind locked doors from his destruction. No good. Rufus laughed evilly at our feeble human brains and picked the locks. He could open any door in the house, at any time.

As I undressed for bed one night, The Dude approached my closed bedroom door and lifted his hand to knock. Before he completed the motion, Rufus appeared and offered (in dog Slovak, of course), “Hey, you want that door to open? Let me help you out!” Before The Dude could translate, Rufus opened the door and pushed it open. The relative quiet of the house was pierced by my startled scream, and The Dude shrieking, “My eyes! My eyes! Oh, please, make it stop!” as he ran into his room, slammed the door, and collapsed, sobbing, into the fetal position.

Being seen naked is a traumatic experience for nearly any woman over 30, but for a teenage boy, seeing his mother naked requires years of therapy. Spending the monetary equivalent of a college education on psychotherapy might help him survive, but it will never, ever erase the horrific image from his brain.

My least favorite feature in our house is our front door, which is actually just a huge pane of glass with a little metal frame around it. Any visitor is treated to an unobstructed view into not only my bedroom, but the downstairs bathroom, as well. For this reason alone, I am attempting to train everyone to keep both doors closed, lest anyone be treated to a peep show they didn’t count on. I, of course, always close both doors. I’m not some sort of exhibitionist!

It’s the high-speed streaking between the closed doors that I need to work on.

A few months ago, I stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around myself, and retreated to the bedroom to get dressed. As I dried off, I remembered that I’d set my clean clothes on the bathroom counter. To this day, I can’t think of one good reason that my clothes and my naked body ended up in different rooms. Furthermore, I can’t rationalize why I didn’t take that towel with me when I darted from my bedroom to the bathroom (though, to be honest, it happens pretty frequently). Mid-streak, I realized that my father-in-law was standing at the front door, finger poised to ring the doorbell.

I tried to pretend that maybe he didn’t actually see me, but The Dude confirmed it after a visit with his grandparents. “Grandpa mentioned that it was pretty embarrassing when he saw you running to the bathroom without a towel,” he reported. “I told him I know how he feels.”

Perfect… they’ve formed a support group.

What Generation Gap?

Staying on the cutting edge of parental coolness is hard work, but I’m committed. In fact, I go out of my way to let my kids know how hip I am, and I’m dedicated to bridging the so-called Generation Gap. What is that, anyway?

Sure, there’s a world of difference between my parents’ generation and mine, but Princess and I shop together. Not only that, we borrow clothes from each other. I steal her t-shirts, she steals my gowns, and every once in a while I reflect on how cool it is that we have similar tastes in clothing. True, this shared style of dress has the public relations director of the Washington Association of REALTORS® muttering about how I need to “start dressing like a first lady,” since I am married to the president. Maybe so, but pillbox hats and Chanel suits aren’t for me, and layered skinny tees, Chuck Taylors and faded jeans are. What Generation Gap?

Mr. Wright had some hesitation about allowing our children to set up Myspace accounts online. After all, pedophiles and other predators are out there, just waiting to prey on trusting children. We discussed it and laid down the rules: the kids could have Myspace pages as long as they “friended” me so I could view their lists of friends. “YOU have a Myspace?” my kids cried in disbelief. Yeah, that’s right. I have a Myspace, and I’m so hip that I had one before my kids. I’m moving on to Facebook, and none of my kids have one of those yet, either. What Generation Gap?

I learned the latest hip-hop dance craze at B.B. King’s in Orlando. I enjoy a good punk concert, and even hang out in the mosh pit. The kids load my mp3 player with their favorite songs, and I can sing along with every one. Not one of my kids has ever told me that I dance like Elaine from Seinfeld, and I consider that a great accomplishment. What Generation Gap?

The Dude told me once that I couldn’t possibly understand the younger generation. “I mean, a lot of kids are Emo now!” he reasoned. “Emo?” I challenged. “I was a Goth! I was Emo before Emo was cool.” He was impressed. What Generation Gap?

There is one thing that’s bothering me, though. During a recent trip, I attended a Lionel Richie concert. Like the hip, cutting-edge mom that I am, I crashed the VIP seating area with my husband and friends. People were going crazy for Lionel, pushing and shoving to get closer, and I ended up being manhandled and thrust forward until I was up against the stage, in the front row. Lionel grabbed my hand and smiled at me, winning me the envy of every woman within an arm’s length. Suddenly, without warning, I was lifted from behind and onto the stage. For a moment, I was simply stunned. Then, realizing that I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I danced a little with Lionel and his band before a security guard insisted that I get off the stage. Immediately.

I was so excited to tell my kids that their rebellious mama had rushed the stage at a concert and danced with a famous musician! “Oh, Mom, that’s SO rock and roll!” I imagined them saying. My bubble of exhilaration was rudely and immediately burst when the kids responded with blank looks and one question: “Who is Lionel Richie?”

Just like that, the Generation Gap appeared, and its broadening mouth threatened to swallow me whole.

Disappointed, I called my parents. I started to tell them about how I thought my kids would be excited that I danced onstage with Lionel Richie, and… “You danced onstage with Lionel Richie?” they interrupted. “That is SO rock and roll!”

Doesn’t it just figure?