March 08, 2005

Talking with my daughter

When I talked to my smart, wonderful, beautiful daughter last night, she was writing a paper for one of her college courses. She was analyzing ads from a famous jeans company and comparing them to porn, making the argument that they had similar subtexts about the body. So while we were talking, she sent me links to websites to look at some of the images she was writing about. I am, remember, a person who does not have cable television, who has never seen MTV, and is only vaguely aware of all the sleaze that is part of pop culture because I tend to live outside of pop culture. It's pretty easy to shock me. But I thought I did a pretty good job playing it cool and giving her my best feminist analysis of the images.

Later when I checked her Away Message (this is what happens when you have children in college, you become an obsessive checker of away messages), the message read:

Showing your Mom porn on the internet is really not such a good idea.

13 comments:

Ianqui said...

She did know you'd see the away message, right? (Actually, I have to admit I'm not sure what an away message is. Is it an IM thing? If so, you'd have a leg up on me on that technology!)

Scrivener said...

She was just trying to impress/shock all her friends. For all your complaining about being thought of as uncool, she must think you're at least pretty cool if you can, you know, watch porn together. Because I seriously doubt that I'm gonna be cool enough to do that with my daughters. Ever.

Scrivener said...

But I'm still cooler than you because I listen to the Shins.

jo(e) said...

Ianqui: Yes, an away message is an im thing. And every college student updates their away message practically every hour so that you always know where they are. My daughter put the away message up mainly to make me laugh -- she told me to check it after I said good night to her. And the sites we were looking at were not EXACTLY porn -- they were ads for designer jeans that have been in fairly mainstream magazines. Daughter has been known to exaggerate for humor. I do not know where she gets this trait from.

jo(e) said...

And Scrivener, I am definitely cooler than you. But probably not as cool as PPB.

Michael LeVan said...

And I'm cooler because I listen to the Fiery Furnaces. But, I guess I'm not cool because I have never done IM. Or maybe that makes me extra cool. OK, definitely not cool if I am talking about my own coolness status. Yes, that's definitely a cool-busting deal breaker.

Pilgrim/Heretic said...

But denying your coolness is inherently cool, so now you're back to being cool again. But you're also starting to hang out more with the riffraff, and I just don't know where that might leave you. Metacool?

Michael LeVan said...

Post-cool (that space that moves from uncool to noncool to the outside of cool).

Michael LeVan said...

. . . and back to dork again.

anbruch said...

I don't do IM. I only have the most basic cable (nothing except local channels and public access), and I even work on media. I am so uncool that I don't even know who the Shins or Fiery Furnaces are. I've passed completely over to the other side and am so uncool that I'm absolutely cool. I rule!

jwb

anbruch said...

I'm also more than a little bit of an egomaniac. ;)

jwb

anbruch said...

And a dork.

jwb

Anonymous said...

Speaking of dorks, I am going to try out some html tags here.

this should be bold

this should be italics