Blah Blah Blah

I don’t understand my kids’ taste in music. Already.

Conversation in the car with a 6-year-old:

Brady: Mom, don’t you love Kesha?

Me: No.

Brady: How DARE you?! I’m not gonna be your mom anymore.

…

Me: Okay.

—

Brady only knows who Kesha is because we watched the 2013 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards on TV. When the promos for this show started showing up on our DVR’ed episodes of Spongebob, Kyle said “Hey, Mom, can we go to that?” and I thought “What the heck, why not?” Turns out tickets to this live show are harder to get than for the Oscars. They’re not for sale to the public, and even hooked-up agents have to enter a lottery to get some. So we watched at home with snacks and a bathroom close by, no need to dress up, drive in crappy traffic, or find parking. I didn’t mind at all.

Except that the show was terrible. The production was a mess. Audio on the presenters was sketchy and the sound on the kids in the audience was turned up at the wrong times so that you heard the chatter of the crowd instead of the presenters or the award recipients. Host Josh Duhamel, while adorable, was awkward and his comic timing was off. Many of the presenters were people my kids wouldn’t have known, and some awards went to artists or titles that were inappropriate for Nickelodeon’s demographic. “The Hunger Games.” Kristen Stewart for “Best Female Buttkicker.” Come on.

This writer chastised herself for not knowing who the people were, and resolved to get hip to the scene before next year’s show. But I agree more with her first statement, that the Kids’ Choice Awards show is not for kids. We all know it’s about ratings and money and advertising, but the kids don’t. So yeah, I’m actually proud that my kids don’t know what “The Hunger Games” movies are and we’ll be sticking to DVR’ed episodes of cartoons, thanks.

Because now I find myself explaining why I don’t like the music of Pitbull or Kesha, only to be met with the type of “you don’t understand music” disdain that I didn’t expect from my children until they hit at least age 12. While I found the show a horrible waste of those hours of my life, the kids didn’t notice its many flaws, and they actually loved it and retained the information about what they think is meant to be “cool.” Thanks a lot, Nickelodeon.