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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

disagreeing with dh re dd (3.5) watching music videos

31 replies

minxofmancunia · 26/02/2010 11:08

before I start I'm not a prude, have lived a fairly liberated life and am very each to their own about a lot of issues. but...

dh lets dd (3.5) watch the music channel as she loves a lot of pop music and likes to have a dance. Harmless enough, a lot of the videos are fine but I do turn it over due to the semi-pornographic of some.

I don't want dd growing up with the idea that you have to look a certain way to be validated as a woman, I don't want her copying lap danceresque styledance moves, I think it's objectionable.
i hate the way women areportrayed in a lot of rap/r+b videos, ie as little more than sex objects.

dh things i'm being over the top and there's nothing to worry about.

AIBU?

OP posts:
fernie3 · 26/02/2010 11:10

I wouldnt let my 3 year old watch some of them either YANBU.

ShinyAndNew · 26/02/2010 11:18

Dh lets dd1 watch music videos that imo are less than appropriate. Although they are generally just things like Cheryl Cole, Girls Aloud, The Saturadys etc.

My problem with them is the way they dress/look and that dd1 wants to emulare them and hopes her hair gets as long/she is as skinny/as brown etc.

Dd1 is quite mature for her age (6) so I am able to explain things like hair extensions/digital retouching/personal trainers etc to her and she is aware that 'real' women don't like this and that even the stars of the videos don't really look like this.

I have yet to think of a way to explain the dancing, but she doesn't see it as sexual so it's not really a problem. So long as he isn't letting her watch Eminem I struggle to get to worked up about tbh. It's something they both enjoy.

MathsMadMummy · 26/02/2010 11:19

I don't normally watch music videos but when my DD (2) saw a countdown chart show which included Girls Aloud I was horrified at the style of dancing she copied . I avoid anything like that now. DD is now obsessed with ballet as I got her Barbie in the Nutcracker dvd!

YANBU, just put your foot down with DH. Maybe get a kiddy pop CD and put that on instead?

CelluliteCity · 26/02/2010 11:26

I have this problem with dd age 5.

She saw a well known girl group on channel 4 on a sun morn and now copies the dance moves. It looks totally inappropriate for a little girl and i am not sure how to stop it.

I have tried to tell her that little girls don't dance like this and that it isn't nice but to no avail.

nickytwotimes · 26/02/2010 11:30

Yanbu.

Many are basically soft-porn, misogynistic crap.

I am not a prude either, but hate women being treated like sex objects.

cosysocks · 26/02/2010 11:37

I don't like my ds (4) watching them either. We now just play music on the playstation through the tv now for him to dance to.
I don't want a lap dncing club (which imo is how some of these videos feel) brought into my living room for my son to watch at 9am!

Original poster
minxofmancunia · 26/02/2010 11:57

I agree nickytwotimes they ARE mysogynistic.

Thanks for the replies, have a bit of back up now!

DH says I've turned into a "rampant feminist" since having dd

OP posts:
PlanetEarth · 26/02/2010 12:09

Quite agree. You can spot an old music video at 100 paces, the women are wearing proper clothes instead of just underwear!

morningpaper · 26/02/2010 12:12

I let mine watch the 80's music channels only

mrsruffallo · 26/02/2010 12:13

YANBU
They are so boring and misogynistic
I let them watch Patti Smith, Janis Joplin and lots of motwon on YouTube though

claig · 26/02/2010 12:18

YANBU, your DH doesn't understand what the intent behind these videos is

olderandwider · 26/02/2010 12:19

Oh God, don't get me started on those awful music videos. It's soft porn and something young children should not be watching, unless you want to see 4 year olds bumping and grinding with each other at in the playground. I put a block on those channels when we got cable TV. Only allowed them when my DC were old enough (about 12) to understand my humourless, feminist, embittered objectification-of-women rant. Those videos make girls hate their bodies and boys think all girls are up for it 24/7. So no, YANBU.

gorionine · 26/02/2010 12:21

YANBU, I was watching something on BBc one yesterday (the One Show ???) there was something about the sexualisation of young children and music videaos were included as a real contributing facto top the over sexualisation on young children, as well as fashion industrie and medias.

cakeywakey · 26/02/2010 12:29

YADNBU, does your husband really want your DD to see the way that women are portrayed in most videos as normal and aspirational?

I'm also at some of the lyrics of songs or their meanings and hate it when children sing them back, not really knowing what they mean. It's horrible.

By the time DH sees something 'to worry about' it will be very hard to undo. Are you going to show him this thread? I don't think we can all be wrong

BuckBuckMcFate · 26/02/2010 12:30

YAsoNBU

DD, 4, had heard the Black Eyed Peas song on the radio in car and was really excited when the video came on one of the music channels.

She was copying Fergie doing a waving her arms around sort of dance.
Cut to shots of the males (fully clothed, normal poses).
Then cut to shots of Fergie, nearly naked, writhing around on the floor!!!

I turned it off. I discussed it with DP and we both agree that she is already exposed to the normalisation of pornography enough just on a visit to the local shop via the newspapers and top shelf, bill boards, etc that we don't want to encourage it in our own home.

It makes me sad because I used to tape Top of The Pops so that my friend and I could learn the routines, the dancing now doesn't seem to involve a routine, just dancing provocatively and looking sexually aroused.

RRAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

paisleyleaf · 26/02/2010 12:32

yanbu
Same as I wouldn't want to take my DD to a pole dancing club.
People seem so desensitized these days - it's like they don't even notice.

CommonNortherner · 26/02/2010 12:40

YANBU!!

I don't let ds watch that crap, I do not want him to think of women like that.

And you DO NOT have to defend yourself by saying you're not a "prude", fucking patriarchal crap where you have to pretend you're okay with colluding with misogynistic forces before they will allow you your one little departure from the script!!

See, there's a way to go before you're a rampant feminist

Portofino · 26/02/2010 12:50

YANBU. Dd is nearly 6 and starting to really "get" pop music now, but I don't want her watching that rubbish. And I'm always having to fast forward Lily Allen songs in the car.

Mind you at a family gathering last weekend, she did a full rendition of "Teenage Dirtbag" to everyone's great amusement.. [proud mother emoticon]

Earthymama · 26/02/2010 14:17

It's really sad, when dd and ds were little, we always watch TOTP and video it.
Then we would dress DS up, my fave memory is of a tiny boy dressing up as Adam Ant.

I'm trying to find something for the Wii that has bouncy dance routines I can learn with DGD, any ideas?

Joolyjoolyjoo · 26/02/2010 14:20

YANBU- wasn't there something on the news today about new research proving/ suggesting that watching music videos (among other things) was damaging children's self-esteem and giving them a complex??

DH was horrified to hear our girls (6 and 4) singing the verse to "Like a Virgin", until we realised they had seen it on the Shrek karaoke and had never heard the chorus!

shockers · 26/02/2010 14:24

A couple of years ago, two of the girls in my class (yr 4) brought a CD in for the Christmas party. They asked if they could show their routine to the rest of the class. We had to stop them as they were simulating lesbian sex with each other as a 'dance routine' .

Coldhands · 26/02/2010 14:26

YANBU. This is on the news today. I would be horrified at my DS watching the music channels (bit too young yet thankfully).

A teacher was talking on the radio saying that some 5 year old boys were going up to girls in the class and simulating sex on them as a result of watching these videos. I also thinks it is a very bad image to young girls. What about Shakira in She Wolf!

If your DD likes pop music, tell your DH to buy her some CDs to listen to. She doesn't have to watch the music, she could just listen.

paisleyleaf · 26/02/2010 14:28

The news on R4 about it today, said something about it creating more violence too, but I wasn't properly listening at the time.

OtterInaSkoda · 26/02/2010 14:31

Are videos really worse these days? I seem to remember them being fairly raunchy in the 80s. And what about Pan's people and Legs & Co?

TBH I consider myself to be a feminist but have no objection to my ds watching the odd pop video - within reason of course. DP has a stong recollection of finding Debbie Harry strangely interesting but not quite knowing why. DS (at 3) seemed to find Kylie wriggling her bottom in that Can't get You Out of my Head video, which irritated me at the time because I resented him being in the thrall of any woman that wasn't me.

Stupid arse gyrating dancers fawning over some twat of a man do piss me off however.

LadyOfTheFlowers · 26/02/2010 14:34

Have 3 boys, oldest one is 4, and on seeing THE Eric Prydz video recently, asked me what those ladies were doing and why and why do we keep seeing their bums - couldn't think of an answer to why we needed numerous up crotch shots.

Similar questions followed the 'Guilty' video (can't remember the artists' name) where they are all dressed up as cops/robbers, brandishing pink dildo like truncheons and gyrating in the shower together.

Lucky for me, they all like metal and blokes with dodgy beards and taches' don't cause me any unanswerable questions.

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