Pop culture dilemmas

My daughter came home from her nanny's house singing Lady Gaga songs. Not knowing anything about Lady Gaga ourselves, my husband and I were appalled to hear lyrics like "I want to take a ride on your disco stick" coming out of our four-year-old's mouth.

But.

OK - I loved Flash Dance when I was that age. Loved it. Later I would dance around my living room to Madonna tunes - with no real understanding of what the lyrics meant.

But.

I really dislike the sexualization of our young children that goes on in our culture, with sexy clothing and dating culture marketed to young girls.

But.

After finding out more about Lady Gaga, I actually kind of like her myself. I have a few of her songs on my iPod now, and some of them (like Just Dance), are harmless enough for a dance party at home with the kids.

But.

I still wouldn't want to hear kids singing the lyrics from some of the other songs.

But.

Oh dear. It's just a lot of "Buts" for us. We aren't ready to totally cut off pop culture and shelter our kids (nor do I think we could unless we also cut them off from contact with people like our neighbors and so forth), but we also aren't comfortable with everything they encounter.

I guess we'll have to keep making up our minds case by case, and doing the radical thing of talking to our kids, even about shades of grey and times we're not sure.