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All right, parents, sing after me...
By Dave Barry. Originally published on August 11, 1996
Awhile ago, The New York Times printed an item concerning an 11-year-old girl who was overheard on the streets of East Hampton, N.Y., telling her father, "Daddy, Daddy, please don't sing!"
The daddy was Billy Joel.
The irony, of course, is that a lot of people would pay BIG bucks to hear Billy Joel sing. But of course these people are not Billy Joel's offspring. To his daughter, Billy Joel apparently represents the same thing that all parents represent to their preeteen offspring: Bozo-Rama. At that agem there is nothing in the world more embarrassing than a parent.
When I was an adolescent, my dad wore one of those Russian-style hats that were semi-popular with middle-aged guys for a while in the early '60s. You may remember this hat: It was shaped kind of like those paper hats that some fast-food workers have to wear, only it was covered with fur. Nobody - and I include Mel Gibson and the late Cary Grant in this statement - could wear this hat and not look like a complete dork. So naturally my dad wore one. The fur on his was dark and curly; it looked as though it had been made from a poodle. My dad was the smartest, most decent and most perceptive person I've ever known, but he was a card-carrying member of the Fashion Club For Men Who Wear Bermuda Shorts With The Waist Up Around Their Armpits, Not To Mention Sandals With Dark Socks.
My dad liked his Russian hat because he was bald and it kept him warm; he did not care what it looked like. But I cared deeply. I especially cared when I was waiting for my dad to pick me up outside the Harold C. Crittended Junior High School after canteen. Canteen was this school-sponsored youth activity designed to give us youths something to do on Friday nights other than vandalize mailboxes; we'd go to the school, and the boys would go to the gym to play basketball, while the girls went to the cafeteria to play Please, Mr. Postman 700 consecutive times on the 45 rpm lo-fi record player and dance The Slop with each other. Eventually the boys would wander in from the gym, and the girls would put on slow, romantic songs such as Put Your Head on My Shoulder, and the boys, feeling the first stirrings of what would one day grow and blossom into mature love, would pour soft drinks down each other's pants.
After canteen we'd stand outside the school, surrounded by our peers, waiting for our parents to pick us up. When my dad pulled up, wearing his poodle hat and driving his Nash Metropolitan - a comically tiny vehicle resembling those cars outside supermarkets that go up and down when you put in a quarter, except the Metropolitan looked sillier and had a smaller motor - I was mortified. I might as well have been getting picked up by a flying saucer piloted by some multi-tentacled, stalk-eyed, slobber-mouthed alien being that had somehow got hold of a Russian hat. I was horrified at what my peers might think of my dad. It never occured to me that my peers didn't even notice my dad because they were too busy being mortified by their parents.
Of course, eventually my father stopped being a hideous embarrassment to me, and I, grasping the Torch of Dork-hood, became a hideous embarrassment to my son - especially when, like Billy Joel, I try to sing. (I don't mean that I try to sing like Billy Joel; I try to sing more like Aretha Franklin.)
If you want to see a flagrant and spectacular violation of the known laws of physics, whatch what my son does if we are in a public place and for some reason, I need to burst into the opening notes of Respect (WHAT you want! Baby I got it!). When this happens, my son's body will instantaneously disappear into another dimension and re-materialize as far as two football fields away. The results are even more dramatic with the song Got My Mojo Workin'
Yes, parents: In the ongoing battle between you and your adolescent children, you posess the ultimate weapon: The Power To Embarrass. Use this power, parents! If your children are in ANY way displeasing you - if they are mouthing off or engaging in unacceptable behavior - don't wast your breath nagging them. Instead, simply do what Billy Joel and I do: Sing.
In fact, I think our judicial system could use this power to punish adolescent criminal defendants:
Judge: Young man, this is your thirf offense. I'm afraid I'm going to have to give you the maximum sentence.
Youthful Defendant: No! Not...
Judge: Yes. I'm going to ask your mom to get up here on the court karaoke machine and sing Copacabana.
Youthful Defendant: NO! SEND ME TO PRISON! PLEASE!!
Yes, if we were to impose this kind of justice, we'd see a dramatic drop in adolescent crime. The streets would be safer; the adults would be in charge again; and the nation would be a happier place. Just thinking about it makes me want to sing a joyful song.
Havin' my BABY! What a lovely way of saying how much
...Hey! Where'd everybody go?