Maybe You're Not Embarrassing Your Kids After All

And I'm embarrassing? The dance floor get-up.

Attention parents who have embarrassed their kids (which pretty much means all of you). An important discovery was made in my household this weekend.

Sometimes parents are embarrassing as hell. And sometimes we are just stealing their spotlight.

The difference is minimal but crucial.

Allow me to explain. Or allow my 7-year-old to explain, I guess I should say.


We were at a wedding, my kid's first thanks to an awesome couple who flat out insisted that she come (and now you know why they're my friends ... they're just awesome people). We'd brought her along in part because the bride told me that her cousin's kid would also be there, so the two little girls would each have someone else to hang with.

And hang they did. Right in the middle of the dance floor, whether there were other people out there or not. In fact, at one point they were the only two people in the entire place getting down to Billie Jean. The fact that neither was even a glimmer in their parents' eyes when Michael Jackson first sang it did not faze them in the least.

What did faze them was the appearance -- at different times -- of their mothers on the dance floor.

I was escorted off.

Or I should say pushed off. Literally.

I sort of hope there is videotape out there of all well, not going to say how many pounds me being moved by my 40-something pounds soaking wet kid in her little sweater dress with her little girl braids and a half dozen glow sticks in her hair off the dance floor.

She then returned to the center of the dance floor to do what she had been doing all night. Cutting a rug in fabulous style with her new bestie.

I wandered off to lick my wounds, fully convinced that I had embarrassed my child.

Fast forward to the next day, when old woman me starts ribbing the whippersnapper. "Why did you kick me off the dance floor? Was I embarrassing you?"

I may have been throwing myself a wee bit of a pity party, but she had no qualms about setting me straight.

"You're (she was also referring to the other girl's mom) adults, and it was for KIDS!," she told me. OK, wedding dance floors aren't exactly for kids, but moving on. She still had some more knowledge to drop on me.

"And they told us we were the best dancers anyway!"

Ah, she's so humble I can hardly stand it.

But I've been licking my wounds, er, thinking about this little conversation -- maybe a little too hard -- and the light finally came on. She wasn't embarrassed by my bad dancing. She wasn't embarrassed to be seen with me.

She didn't want me to steal her thunder. SHE had adoring fans who were watching HER every ridiculous move. And she loved it! If I got out there, well, who knows how many people might actually talk to me or, don't say it Jeanne, don't say it (cough, dance with me, cough, cough).

So we have moved on. Here I was the egotist who thought only about how her kid must find her so embarrassing. And I'm raising an egotist who wants the crowd to love her.

The apple didn't even hit the ground yet, did it?

Do you embarrass your kids? Don't leave me alone in my misery. Please, enlighten me!



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