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I’m sort of famous for dragging my kids (emphasis on the dragging part) on hikes and begging them to do yoga with me. If you drive by my house on any random night, you might even catch a glimpse of us staging a highly aerobic Taylor Swift karaoke marathon together. But I have to tell you, I’m drawing the line at pole dancing with them.
Snicker all you will, but it seems -- as one magazine headline roared -- some people believe that the family that poles together stays together. Okay, that article was in Pole Spin magazine, which might just be skewed the tiniest bit toward the already-enthusiastic exotic-dance crowd, but trust me, there’s a scary trend going on here.
Doubt me? Blame it on buxom D-lister Brooke Hogan filming herself practicing the classic pole move “very bad kitty” with her mom in 2008. She can share some of the blame with Miley Cyrus, who practically molested a tall, cylindrical metal beam onstage at the Teen Choice Awards last year. And clever marketers are catching on. In addition to the Pole Spin piece (which features a two-year-old dancer and a six-year-old instructor), Fox News recently reported on a Canadian fitness studio that offers a kids’ pole dancing class -- and is considering adding a new one for the “mommy-and-me” crowd. Do a random search for “pole dancing for kids” -- just for grins -- and you’ll get more than half a million mind-blowing results.
Listen, I am far from prudish. I swear like a sailor, my kids know way too many Gwen Stefani lyrics, and I relish a juicy celebrity scandal as much as the next gal. I love dancing and getting sweaty and wearing sexy clothes, and I get the whole crossover concept -- really I do. If mixing up your usual yoga-spinning-Pilates routine with an occasional “vertical dance class” gets you jazzed to work up a sweat, more power to you. But last time I checked (which was about five minutes ago, and you can Google it yourself if you must) pole dancing is -- and always has been -- a stripper skill. And while wriggling and gyrating around a very large phallic symbol may be athletic and artistic (and I applaud strippers everywhere for bleeding stupid, lecherous men of their cash and sashaying with it all the way to the bank), it’s not necessarily something I want to see my daughters doing any time soon. Or ever.
Do you think it's okay for kids to pole dance? Chime in below!
