Family Ties – Mary Ann Fitzmorris

Call us the freak family. We are probably the only group of four on the planet who missed the “wardrobe malfunction” that registered on the Richter scale.

We didn’t see what everyone is talking about. We saw what they should be talking about: the game. What a game!

But when it was time for the big extravaganza, I hit the off button.

“What?” my son gasped, although he wasn’t really surprised. “I can’t watch the halftime show?”

“Naw. I can tell from the previews that it’s going to be way too trashy. You’ll have to skip it,” I said in a rare, bold execution of parental duty.

The boy stood there in disbelief, like he always does when the spineless jellyfish has the strange reflex of a stiffening backbone.

This conversation caught my husband’s attention. “He can’t watch the halftime show?” the man asked, with a gaping jaw to match my son’s.

“No,” I declared, not budging an inch. “He can come back into the room when the game resumes, but he’ll have to find something else to do in the meantime.”

Both guys sensed my resolve. My son went off to the computer to talk to his friends, and my husband mumbled something under his breath about the halftime show being the best part of the game. No one dared press it

further.

About ten minutes later the boy was passing through the room and decided to test the veto. Immediately an alarm went off that sounded a lot like my daughter’s voice. “Mom, he’s got the game on!”

By the time the television lit up again, my son already knew everything that went on during the halftime show from his friends online. Still, that wasn’t nearly as bad as if he had seen with his own eyes the filthy images that tried to pass for entertainment.

Ever since two desperate pop stars nearly swallowed each other on the last music awards show, I have reaffirmed my commitment to filter the poison that has become our pop culture.

This is no easy task. Promos for upcoming events or programs are cleverly inserted into family programs, making it risky to watch even the wholesome parts, like the game.

Tactics like that backfired for the network in this house. Highlights of the planned halftime show tipped me off to the base entertainment coming to a living room near me. I opted out, and everyone followed, whether they wanted to or not.

My son was not surprised to discover that he was the only one at the lunch table at school the next day that hadn’t seen Janet Jackson’s pasties. When the subject began, one of the guys cracked, “Well, we all know who didn’t see it last night.” The entire table turned in unison to look at him.

“The overprotective parents strike again, eh?” another kid joked.

“So, you won’t be watching the Grammys either,” one of the guys guessed. My son didn’t need to answer.

The poor kid. He’s never seen one of those shows. I was just getting around to thinking about letting him see one when the superstar girls locked lips.

We won’t be revisiting the subject. But that doesn’t keep him from trying to be “normal.”

When the Grammys were previewed in the Super bowl game, my son got excited.

“The Grammys are coming up? I gotta watch it!” he said, casting a pleading eye in my direction.

“Forget it. Not gonna happen,” I said, even before I nixed the halftime show.

He used to complain about living in a bubble, but it has become a joke between him and his friends. They used to plead his case to me. Now they just pity him. He gets the cultural poison by hearsay, like secondhand cigarette smoke.

The raging controversy of the past ten days has focused attention on his pop cultural ignorance. I asked him how he feels about being the only guy around, it seems, who is shut out.

“I’m used to it,” he said. “Besides, I don’t want to damage my psyche,” he said sarcastically, regurgitating my reason for denying him. “My friends all have damaged psyches,” he chuckled, gesturing with hand quotation marks.

All mockery aside, I can’t let him have a steady diet of that stuff.

The guilt would be damaging to my psyche.