Dance Moms

I know that none of you watch Lifetime Television's exploitative and hideous show Dance Moms because you're all better people than that. Good for you. I'm better than that, too. So, if this is a post about Dance Moms, I guess I have nothing more to say and you have nothing more to read, so you can all just close this page now and move on to do more important things like preparing that presentation (is that something that people with real jobs do?), caring for your children, or virtuous acts of charity. Run along. Shoo! There you go.

Okay. Are they gone? Good. To those of you real people still left reading, I feel completely free to confess that I was an avid/addicted watcher of the first two seasons of that hideous monstrosity of a show...and I loved every minute of it. Don't get me wrong, I feel guilty about it. I do. But it happened and I can't take it back so I'm' just going to embrace it: Abby Lee Miller, crying little girls, shrieking jealous harpy women and all.

I live vicariously through the Dictator...
which is awful...but notice the
complete lack of duck lips.

For those of you who are actually good people and are somehow still reading despite my clever ruse to eliminate you from my readership, Dance Moms is a "reality" show following a nasty dance studio owner with a God complex (Abby Lee Miller) who hurls insults at dancers' mothers as a motivational tool. Apparently it works, because the tiny prodigies keep winning all sorts of awards at the competitions they attend weekly (who the heck attends dance competitions weekly?!). And to be fair, if there is even a shred of reality in this show, the mothers probably deserve the insults. A few of them would have made perfect guests of the Jerry Springer Show, while others have mastered passive-aggression with an  artistry and skill that would make the meanest tween girl drool with envy. It is an awful show. I hate everything about it. And I loved it.

We find that roses, t-shirts and trophies are nicer
motivational tools than insults hurled at parents.

There are many theories as to why. There's the stated reason, of course, that I just really like to watch people dance, and there's a lot of dancing on the show. Also, there's the theory that I'm just a really awful person who likes exploitative television. Most compelling, perhaps, is the theory put forth by a psychologist I heard on NPR (yes, I also consume substantive, responsible media output), who speculated that one reason we so love these shows is that they make us feel infinitely better about our own parenting. Yes, I'm a dance mom who lives vicariously through my own child, but at least I'm not those dance moms. And I'm not.

Evidence:

Those Dance Moms: Put their daughters into the hands of a diabolical crazy woman.
This Dance Mom: Puts her daughter in the hands of a very nice group of teachers who really care about the children...and who are not crazy (I think).

Those Dance Moms: Get into dramatic, crying, screaming fights with their daughters' dance teacher and storm out of the studio on a regular basis.
This Dance Mom: Never gets into dramatic, crying, screaming fights with anyone. Usually leaves dance studio in an unstormy fashion.

Those Dance Moms: Have a special observation room in which they are filmed obsessively watching their daughters dance...because they want to assure that their precious offspring are getting the most attention.
This Dance Mom: Plasters herself to the observation window and peers annoyingly through the slats of the closed blinds in order to obsessively watch her daughter dance...because she's nosy as all sin.

Those Dance Moms: Have giant homes with massive kitchens, probably as a product of selling their lives, children and possibly souls to Lifetime Television
This Dance Mom: Has an itty bitty condo with a cramped kitchen, probably as a result of spending money on dance tuition instead of trivial things like housing.

Those Dance Moms: Dress their children in two-piece, custom-made, rhinestoned dance outfits with matching hair accessories, earrings, and full make-up for dance class.
This Dance Mom: Throws her kid in whatever black leotard may or may not happen to be clean at the moment, whichever tights happen to emerge first from beneath the pile of stuffed animals in her room, and endures the Dictator's shrill screams as she forces her ratty, unbrushed hair into a haphazard ponytail, which the Dictator will then proceed to pull out within the first ten minutes of class.

Those Dance Moms: Pitch hysterical, indignant fits when their children aren't granted multiple solos per competition.
This Dance Mom: Figures the Dictator will get a solo when she's good and ready (and to be fair, probably before that time) and isn't interested in pushing it, because solo entrance fees are really pricey and we can't even afford housing, remember?

Those Dance Moms: Get a little icked out by all the age-inappropriate raunchiness that can occur in the dance world (much to their credit...bravo, other Dance Moms!), and yet somehow still manage to put their preteen children onstage in nothing but push-up bras and booty shorts.
This Dance Mom: Is utterly disturbed by the age-inappropriate raunchiness at dance competitions which includes, but is not limited to: duck lips on preschoolers, push-up bras for costumes, eight-year-old girls making dirty sexual faces that I didn't learn to make until I was, like, 30, and choreography that, as the Bureaucrat puts it, "Would have every guy in here throwing dollar bills...if these girls were 15 years older." But they're not. They're seven. And so every man in there feels like a dirty, dirty pedophile when he accidentally wakes up from his nap/looks up from his i phone and happens to inadvertently glance at the stage full of gyrating little girls. As a result this dance mom has put her daughter in a studio that likes its children fully-clad, its dance dads unhorrified, and its choreography super-wholesome...and is happy with that, even if it means enduring more than her fair share of Disney music.

The Dictator and Anarchist with their unhorrified dance dad
after a recital in which they did NOT gyrate ANYTHING.

Those Dance Moms: Leave their husbands at home.
This Dance Mom: Wakes her husband up at 6 am so that she doesn't have to drive to all these dance things by herself. Tries to engage her husband in conversation about the dancing. Fails utterly. Takes solace in the fact that at least he's physically present, even if he's actually finishing The Hound of the Baskervilles on his Kindle and not watching the dancing at all.

Those Dance Moms: Have younger children who do not want to dance and prefer to stay home and eat chips...but dance anyway, even if only half-heartedly...while thinking of chips.
This Dance Mom: Has a younger child who actually stays home and eats chips.

The Anarchist and Dictator in last year's
dance costumes. This is the last dance
costume the Anarchist will ever own, as
she feels the dance studio gets too hot in
the summer and would thusly prefer to
stay at home and eat chips.

Those Dance Moms: Get into physical confrontations with one another over whose daughter is the apple of crazy-diabolical-dance-teacher-lady's eye.
This Dance Mom: Is well aware that her child isn't exactly the most coordinated dancer in the bunch and is just happy that she's active, part of a group, and loving the heck out of it. Also, is deathly afraid of physical confrontation.

Those Dance Moms: Live vicariously through their children (shame on them!)
This Dance Mom: Lives vicariously through her child. But feels bad about it. And tries to keep herself in check. And doesn't scream, throw tantrums, weep, or cattily talk about other moms. So...that's a start, right? Right?

Of course, right. Thank you, unethical, destructive "reality" television for validating my own view of myself and making anything I do look like super amazing good parenting, relative to anything those other moms do. And those of you who watch/have watched that glorious abomination of a television show, please take solace in the fact that it provides a useful service to self-doubting moms everywhere...and also take solace in the fact that you're not alone. But whatever you do, don't let the good, kind, wholesome-stuff-watchers of the world know what we're up to. And now I must be going. I have some Toddlers in Tiaras to catch up on Beowulf to read...and some dirty tights to salvage off the floor.