Ann Margret, Am I Screwing Up My Kid?

Original movie poster, taken from Wikipedia

Amelia has recently taken to wearing only dresses. To be more specific, only pretty dresses. In the morning before thinking about peeing or eating or even leaving her crib, she points to the closet, commanding that I or daddy get her the party dress, not the cute summer dress (even though it is February), not the cute play dress, but THE dress, the one with red flowers on non-machine washable fabric covering three layers of tulle petticoat.

I purposely didn’t bring THE dress to Sacramento and she has managed to survive without it, but she still insists on wearing a dress every day. She is not a fashionista because of me. If I put on jeans I consider myself dressed up. If I wear the sweatshirt with the ruffly front, I’m ready for a night on the town. If I adorn my feet with TOMS rather than with nothing, I’m living large that day. No, Amelia is not fashion forward because of her dear mother. She has gone toddlers and tiaras on me because of Ann Margret. To be more specific, Ann Margret as Kim from Bye Bye Birdie.

I wrote about Amelia’s girl crush before (you can read is HERE) and instead of dissipating, this girl crush has morphed into a dress obsession, precipitated by both the movie and a trip to the Corvette Diner in San Diego (think of a Diner on speed and you are close to imagining the Corvette).

Prepare yourself for a shocking parenting statement. Are you ready? I, Miss Overthinking Mom, let my not yet two year old daughter watch the movie Bye Bye Birdie EVERY SINGLE DAY. Most days we don’t get through the whole thing, but at least once a day she watches part of it. That’s right. EVERY SINGLE DAY. At first I thought it was a harmless love. But now Miss Only Wears Dresses dances, snaps, and even screams like the over-acting characters in this annoying musical. Fine. I can live with that. However, have you ever really listened to the lyrics of “How Lovely to be a Woman”? Well, I have. Many many times. For those of you not as intimately familiar with every second of Bye Bye Birdie, I’ll give you a snippet:

“How lovely to be a woman,
The wait was well worth while;
How lovely to wear mascara
And smile a woman’s smile.
How lovely to have a figure,
That’s round instead of flat;
Whenever you hear boys whistle,
You’re what they’re whistling at.
It’s wonderful to feel
The way a woman feels;
It gives you such a glow just to know
You’re wearing lipstick and heels!
How lovely to be a woman
And have one job to do;
To pick out a boy and train him
And then when you are through,
You’ve made him the man you want him to be!”

Okay, so let’s disregard the heels problem (cause my girlie ain’t wearing those) and the wearing mascara (I’m okay with that), how am I supposed to deconstruct the happy guys are whistling at me and pick out a boy and train them lines for a two year old? Sure, the song has its tongue firmly planted in its cheek, but toddlers don’t get that. The movie has other obvious gender problems that you don’t even want to get me started on, so I could stop her from watching the movie or try and explain some stuff, but frankly the reason she watches it every day is my exhaustion. I’m tired. She likes the movie. It calms her before bed. But Ann Margret, I ask you, am I screwing up my kid? Probably.