Where did I go wrong?

Imagine my shock when in the car, I recently heard my daughter singing the following lyrics under her breath while jamming to a song on her iPod:

“My hump my hump my hump… my lovely lady lumps.”

Now, mind you, I am familiar with this popular song by the Black Eyed Peas. I have been known to rant a time or two (or three or four…) about the lyrics’ objectification of women as nothing more than sex objects. The only female band member is singing about her, um, how do I say this gently---tush and breasts. Let me give you another snippet of the song:

They say I'm really sexy

The boys they wanna sex me

They always standin next to me

Always dancin next to me

Tryna feel my hump hump

Lookin at my lump lump

Lovely. Just lovely. I parade around the country addressing the challenges parents face in raising their daughters in today’s provocative culture only to hear my own 15 year-old daughter hum the chorus of “my hump my hump my hump” in the back seat of my car. Where in the world did I go wrong? For heaven’s sakes, I’ve drawn up rules and boundaries for the Internet, MySpace surfing, text messaging, instant messaging, buddy lists, online profiles, blogging, television shows, and movies, do I now have to add monitoring 1000 songs on my daughter’s IPod? Not to mention, I have two other children to also keep an eye on. Can I just confess that as a parent, I am absolutely exhausted? It is hard not to feel overwhelmed and defeated when the culture is bombarding our youth non-stop with smut.

It has never been my intent with virtue alerts to come before you as an expert or authority on raising preteens and teens. Hah! In fact, it is important to me that you view me as a fellow mom in the trenches right next to you. I have the camo on with the binoculars around my neck and some of that black stuff smeared under my eyes. My gun is hoisted up on my shoulder and I’m sniping at everything I can see that might harm my children and worrying about the things I can’t see. I am just like you. I face the same challenges you do and believe it or not, sometimes my kids do questionable things…like singing about their hump, their hump, their hump, their lovely lady lumps. Heavy sigh. Am I the only Christian mother whose kids will only periodically listen to Christian music? My parenting philosophy does not include banning all secular radio stations and forbidding the (legal) downloading of non-Christian music to their MP-3 players. My children are not into hip-hop and know better than to download Eminem, 50 Cent, or other like-minded groups. My parenting philosophy has been to raise critical thinkers who are able to examine a situation and filter it through God’s lens. It is a parenting philosophy that requires much time and attention on the part of both my husband and myself. It involves not only giving our children a foundation to make godly choices, but also taking advantage of teachable moments where we can face the culture head on. Like a song called “My Hump.” And so I had a choice in the car that day. I could do one of he following things:

           A) I could ignore it because I don’t have enough time to deal with it. We have to “choose our battles,”   

right? Besides, she’s a good girl and probably doesn’t even know what she’s singing about. Yeah, right.

           B) I can forbid her from downloading any more songs on her iPod without my prior approval. All 1000 

of them. Yeah, right—that fits nicely into my Daytimer.

           C) I can throw the iPod off a twenty-story building. That should take care of the problem…until she

heads off to college and goes crazy berserk rebelling against my unrealistic rules and expectations.

           D) Or I could stick with my original parenting philosophy and take advantage of this obvious teachable

moment and calmly explain my position on the degrading song lyrics.

As you can guess, I opted for “D” and here is a rough transcript of how it went:

Me: Paige, turn your IPod off for a minute, okay?

Paige: What, I can’t hear you.

Me: Turn your IPod off (I add sign language for emphasis)

Paige: (taking earbuds out) What? (I wish I could tell you she said responded with “Yes Ma’am,” but we’re being honest here, right?)

Me: Honey, I’m just curious, but what in the world is “a hump a hump and lovely lady lumps?” Help m e out, here.

Paige: Mom, I don’t know. It’s just a song. It doesn’t mean anything.

Me: It must mean something. Is she singing about a couple of female camels?

Paige: Mom, you are such a dork. Ugh, why do you do this to me?

Me: Paige, it’s my job to be a dork. And someday, you will have kids and believe it or not, they will think you are a dork. My point is this: She is singing about her butt and boobs and how she uses them to attract guys and manipulate them. First of all, I have told you that God did not create women to be viewed as “objects.” Secondly, this song does not bring glory and honor to God. Period. End of sentence.

Paige: Fine. (rolls eyes)

Me: I want you to pray about it and take it before God. Just ask Him if you should keep the song on your IPod. Okay?

Paige: (softening some) Fine, but I already paid 99¢ for it from iTunes.

Me: Tell you what: I’ll give you 99¢ to replace it with another song. Deal?

Paige: Okay. Fine.

Me: Paige---I love you.

Paige: I love you too, Mom.

So, there you have it. I guess you could consider this a virtue alert. Or a confession of sorts. Or maybe, a reminder that we’re all in this together and it’s awfully tough to raise godly kids in an ungodly world—even for those of us that are giving it everything we’ve got.