I am going to attempt to prove Justin Bieber is a form of birth control, if used correctly.

For a few weeks now, Mike and I have been in a heated debate over the boy band, One Direction--and the degree to which we believe they will influence our daughters and their overall confidence and identity.  I believe we are on the precipice of something monumental and life-changing; and it will come as no shock that Mike believes I am drinking HEAVILY.


Mike, of course, has never been in LOVE with the New Kids on the Block.  You kind of need that frame of reference to get what I am saying here, because if you didn't CRY when Joey McIntyre sang "Please Don't Go Girl" like a chipmunk, then I'm not sure we can be friends.  Also, "Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time" is one of the best song's EVER MADE, and I still find it fascinating that a song with THAT TITLE could make millions of dollars, before the age of the Internet and the magic troll, Ryan Seacrest.  


Here's the thing, friends.  I lived in Hawaii, and we didn't have a boy band popping through town every week--but when the New Kids came in 1990?  I. Was. There.  In this crop-top number with a zipper, except that it wasn't indecent or slutty, because my massive slouching problem, combined with the fashion of the 90's, brought my high-waisted denim shorts just shy of my armpits back then.   Also, and this is a KEY POINT in my argument:  12-14 year old girls who cry when Jordan Knight's sweat beads hit them in the 10th row, are *generally* not the demographic that throws their underwear on stage as a sign of affection.  That inappropriateness belongs to their crazy (delusional) middle-aged mothers (as is happening, every night, on the NKTOB reunion tour).


Girl's who love boy bands spend HOURS learning the dance routine to "The Right Stuff".  They make signs with dot letters and t-shirts with puffy paint.   They are living the tween version of the Disney princesses,  but instead of a castle and a glass slipper, their imaginations have matured into believing that love and romance = cheesy love songs and hair gel and color coordinated skinny jeans (the Justin Bieber factor).  Which is AWESOME, because I have just started watching Friday Night Lights, and what I see coming down the pipe in a few years is Tim F-ing Riggins.   And good golly, the writers/casters/stylists on that show did a bang up job of making sure that every running back with long hair will destroy the fragile morality of young, teenage girls with a single, smouldering glance.


I am ON TO YOU, Tim Riggins (Obsessed actually.  Can't. Look. Away.)--but singing chipmunks and stripped cardigans it is for my girls.  Before they even have the inkling to choose choose pick up trucks and flannels shirts for themselves.


Which leads me to my next point, parents of young children:  STOP making fun of boy bands and telling my daughter that they have no real talent or genitalia.  First off, they are making BANK.  Secondly, if you chase them away from wholesome, upbeat, pop music about how BEAUTIFUL they are, you are pushing them straight toward Mumford & Sons or the Dirty Projectors, or the band of the day that is writing music full of angst that just speaks to the heart of Tim Riggins and teenage hormones.  


{Disclosure:  I had to solicit the advice of an indie music snob on this one.  The most *alternative* band I can name is Coldplay.}

Now, under normal circumstances, this would just be a philosophy I operate under, and not an actual debate--except that One Direction has announced dates for it's 2013 North American tour, and one of them includes a stop in Kansas City.  Mike thinks I am cooking meth simply for wanting to buy tickets 15 MONTHS OUT to a band most people haven't heard of--but he didn't see them on the Today Show, and OBVIOUSLY doesn't listen to Ryan Secrest's radio show, because they are the shizzzzz--and we have a REAL opportunity to get in on this action while they are still up and coming.  I mean, do you KNOW what kind of bragging rights come with being one of their first (million) American fans????  It's like saying you have a copy of NKOTB's first Teen Bop cover--because you always KNEW they were the real deal.  Boom.


And before you go bashing my musical taste (because I think I've proven a direct link to teenage pregnancy and 15-year-old girls who "pretend" to like The Black Keys for the sake of  a Tim Riggins-type)--let me remind you that I purchased $15 tickets for Mike and I to see Bruno Mars at a concert venue sandwiched in between strip joints in November '10.  So when all you music snobs talk about how he KILLED IT at the Grammy's this year, I say, "He's been killing it since East St. Louis, 2010."


Here's how it's all going to play out, friends.  The girls and I will make some memories dancing to the hits of One Direction.  We may even take in a concert to seal the deal on their young puppy love, and a t-shirt will be purchased.  We will buy their ENTIRE CD, and memorize the words to every song (sidenote:  don't get me started on how  iTunes makes this kind of loyalty OBSOLETE).  Eventually, after a few years, the hype will die down, but we will have firmly established their roots in the boy-band genre, and everytime a Backstreet-Boys type of artists hits the radio, they will hum along like Pavlov's dog.  They'll eventually hit a phase where they TRY to like the Florence + the Machine of their day, but their hearts, oh their pop music hearts, will always be with the Biebers of the world.  


They'll hide it, though and pretend to be into bands no one has ever heard of; something strange, like a duo that only utilizes an oboe and some bagpipes.   And as much as I try to hide them in the crowd, neither girl will be invisible to the Tim Riggin's of the world forever; but having been raised with a "pack mentality", and as one of the girls in the screaming masses, Bon Iver won't ever feel comfortable as a make-out song (if he was smart, he would play "One Less Lonely Girl").   Music will be her conscience, and Riggins will never work, because they are just too different, and she will be too embarrassed of her roots to ever be herself--at least not the girl that One Direction always sang about.   But one day--ONE DAY--she/they will be an adult who can laugh at herself, and she will casually mention that she cried at a One Direction concert, and some friends that she just met will say--


"OHMYGOD, so did IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!"


And that, is how girls are endeared to each other FOREVA.   And also how I plan to prevent G & L from falling in love with the tortured, rugged type and avoid teenage pregnancy, by pre-programming their lives to a teeny-bopper soundtrack.  


True Story.