I’ve gathered from the internet that this here is a classic millennial parenting joy: sharing a piece of pop culture with your kid.
We all grew up steeped in whatever pop culture we loved. We are deep into fandoms and have tattoos and identities shaped by the stories that we have watched, read, and played over the years. We seek out communities to share in these delights, from Discords, to Facebook groups, to re-watch podcasts.
So for those of us with young kids, sharing that curated collection of your favourites with the next generation is a waiting game: waiting until they are old enough, ready to enjoy it, ready to pay attention.
This isn’t watching Bluey and enjoying it because the show made for them also appeals to adults. This is taking something you love, or loved in a previous lifetime, and introducing them to it.
It’s taking a precious piece of your heart, a piece of what makes you who you are, and showing it to this person who you love so much, and so want them to love it too. And hoping.
My oldest kid is 5. I’m still in the waiting phase. Most of the pop culture I love won’t really be age-appropriate for several more years. But…
One day I was sitting on the couch reading Heartstopper volume 1 by Alice Oseman, source material for the much raved about Netflix series, when my 5 year old wanders over and asks me to read it out loud because it looks like a comic book, and he likes comic books.
I’m taken aback and don’t expect him to hang around for long. My “grown up” books don’t usually keep his attention for more than a page. Plus, we’ve never been a Disney fairy tale love story kind of house. As far as I know, he had no reference point for romance as a genre at all. (Maybe Mickey and Minnie mouse?! Mario and Peach?)
So it surprised and delighted me, when he didn’t want me to stop reading. He gobbled it up, and begged to read it over again from the beginning. This sweet, utterly romantic love story between Nick and Charlie, somehow captured his little 5 year old heart the same way it captured mine.
I had to edit on the fly, cutting out a few of the swears that appear on the page (but not in the Netflex adaptation), and calling lots of people “Jerks,” rather than “Dickheads.” But otherwise, here he was, my kid, falling for a book I loved. Something we could genuinely share and experience together.
These parenting moments are the joys we wait for. Of wanting to read a book together, because it’s a book I genuinely want to read anyway. Of watching how he swoons over the moments of sweetness, that offer such a warm and healthy role model for romantic love. Of feeling like I must be doing something right, for him to have space in his heart for queer teen romance, snuggled up with mom.
My heart is full, and ready when he is, to break off another slice to share.
