My 10 year old daughter sang White and Nerdy to me today. I thought it was funny until I read the lyrics and got down to the second to last paragraph. It talks about getting personal with bubble wrap. (White and nerdy is a parody of the popular rap song “Ridin’ Dirty”. The parody is written and sang by Weird Al Yankovic,who by the way,hasn’t aged a day in 20 years, though his lyrics have kept up with the times.) My 12-year-old son explained a bit of IM shorthand to me today. Apparently, POS is an impolite term meaning, “piece of … something”.
Yet every single time I read about homeschoolers, online… every time someone disagrees with homeschooling, they say that homeschooled kids are out of touch with other kids. They claim homeschoolers are ignorant of popular culture.
I guess I would stop beating this dead horse, if I did not read such comments on a daily basis.
Other things I wish my tweens were not aware of:
- Imaginary Role Models: My husband complains our daughter acts like the goofy twin from the 1990’s sitcom Sister-Sister.
- Kidz Bop songs: I hate most of them. All Kidz Bop is as far as I am concerned are very adult songs with suggestive lyrics sung in children’s voices. It is kinda freaky, actually. (The Christmas CD is OK)
- Cartoon Network: Shows like Billy and Mandy that stars The Grim Reaper, and Fairly Odd Parents where the men are made to look like complete idiots, appalls me.
To eliminate such influences from the lives of my homeschoooled children, I would have to throw the TV and Laptops out the window. Then again, unless we move out to the middle of nowhere, I am not sure that getting rid of media will do the job.
Hmmm, I guess, at the end of the day, homeschooled kids will still be kids… go figure.