Don’t cha wish your mom was cool like me?

“You’re waaaay to old to be listening to Miley Cyrus mom. Seriously, you need to stop. It’s not cool.”

I turned from the video I was glued to on You Tube and for once my son’s sarcasm left me speechless. All the possible responses like “Hey it’s a free country!” or “What’s it to you?” seemed hopelessly lame. Besides, at least on the surface, my son is right. At 49 I am decades past the age when I could justify downloading Miley. Sadly, the hours of Radio Disney my daughter listens to in the car have infiltrated my subconscious and hijacked what remained of my musical taste. Which is why I walk around the house humming silly little ditties like “Party in the U.S.A.” by Cyrus, and “Crush” by David Archuleta. It was only a matter of time before they made their way onto my iPod. Wasn’t it?

But let’s digress, shall we? My unabashed enjoyment of what used to be called “bubblegum pop” might have something to do with my own adolescence. I was not a cool kid – short, shy, frizzy hair, too black to be white, too white to be black. An A-student and sheltered only child, I hung with what others probably called the nerds until around 9th grade when I suddenly developed, lopped off my girlish pony tail and invested in shiny platform Candies, tight Dittos jeans and cropped halter tops. This earned me a tenuous spot on the fringe of the in crowd where I almost blended in, but for my ineptitude when it came to music. I never seemed clued in to what was popular until way after the fact.

I remember one conversation (amazing you can recall particular humiliations as far back as age 14) where an especially cool girl said to a group of equally cool girls (and me) how much she liked Bette Midler. Me, wanting to fit in piped up, “Oh I LOVE Beth Midler!” The cool girls turned their collective heads to shoot me daggers of disdain, as the ringleader sneered, “It’s BETTE Midler,” before tossing her hair and effectively dismissing me.

Although I can tell that story like it happened last week, I am completely over the trauma of it. Really. I consider myself popular enough, thin enough and most days competent enough to pass muster, so I’m not out there still trying to fit in or be cool. Plus I rocked my black dress at my 30-year high school reunion, so it really is all good.

But am I chasing lost youth by listening to songs written for and/or by pre-teen girls? Upon reflection (because as a mom blogger it’s what I spend a lot of my time doing) I don’t really think so. The fact that I know all the lyrics to every Taylor Swift song notwithstanding, I remain unconvinced that occasionally grooving to teeny bopper top tens veers me towards the edge of a mid-life crises. These frothy, pointless songs just make me feel good. They tempt me to lock my bedroom door and sing along with my hairbrush. They help me to stop taking myself so seriously.

So the next time my son accuses me of being too old for my playlist, I’m going to smile and answer him with a loud, off-key chorus by teen queen Selena Gomez: “Tell me, tell me, tell me something I don’t know, something I don’t know, something I don’t know!”

Tune in for my next post, “How to annoy and embarrass a pre-teen boy without really trying.”