I will NOT be there for you, nor do I want you to be there for me.

I swear.  There is one trite, annoying, meaningless, banal, cliche, hackneyed phrase that English speakers and writers rely upon to express the concept of emotional support that I believe has lost all meaning, if it ever had any to begin with.  It is "is there for [personal pronoun]," as in "he is always there for me," or "my mother was never there for me," or "What the hell do you want from me? I just want you to be there for me."

Maybe the long-lasting sit-com Friends started it 16 years ago, giving U.S. popularity to the catchy but lyrically lame song by The Rembrandts, "I'll Be There for You."

I'll be there for you
When the rain starts to pour
I'll be there for you
Like I've been there before
I'll be there for you
'Cuz you're there for me too...

But it's not just a sitcom theme song.  It's all over pop music:

Wyclef Jean, in Class Reunion:  

Baby girl, the world is yours, just look through
That open door, I'll be there for you
If you ever feeling blue (oh), it's a beautiful world

And Prince, in Adore:

Until the end of time
I'll be there for you.
You own my heart and mind
I truly adore you.

Bon Jovi succumbed to the allure of the cliche, with "I'll Be There for You"

I'll be there for you
These five words I swear to you
When you breathe I want to be the air for you
I'll be there for you
I'd live and I'd die for you
Steal the sun from the sky for you
Words can't say what a love can do
I'll be there for you

It's all over TV and movie dialogue, all over eavesdropped conversations on the El. It has become the catchphrase of a generation, and it makes me want to puke.  (Although I do kind of like the Bon Jovi song, in spite of the hated phrase.)

When I was teaching freshman composition, I gave my students the assignment of writing an essay on a person they admired.  The phrase "she was always there for me," or some variation, showed up more times than the word maverick in a Sarah Palin speech.  I made my students rewrite their essays without using that phrase even once--and they complained like I asked them to make their own ink out of mangos and Elmer's Glue.  But when those essays came back, the students instead discovered creative and thoughtful language, images and illustrations to convey the love and support they received from their admired one.

"She stayed up listening to me until 2 a.m. the night my boyfriend broke up with me," one girl wrote about her mother.  Another wrote about her best friend, "She's a great listener, and she lets me borrow her clothes, even after I got a stain on her sweater."  See what I mean?  Specific, meaningful illustrations that put a clear picture in your head of what the speakers/writers appreciate in their friends.

Here's my challenge to you, my readers, who are clearly smarter and more talented than all the rest:  Count how many times you hear or read this phrase in a week--on TV, in music, from your friends and colleagues.  I heard it six times the other day on TV and in the grocery store.  In one day! 

Each time you hear it, ask yourself if the phrase gives you a clear sense of what the person means when he uses it, or if he could use more specific and descriptive language to communicate more effectively.  And then take the pledge to rid the English-speaking world of this phrase which is the zucchini of language--it's all over the place, and virtually tasteless.

Awful Christmas Music

I confess: I love Christmas music. When WLIT switches over to their holiday music programming, I play that station all the time. The kids and I sing along. It's very corny and lame.

However, I am not so lame that I don't recognize truly awful Christmas songs when I hear them, and I've heard a few this season that provoke the same type of response as ipecac syrup.

One of them is Christmas Shoes, written and performed about 10 years ago by a group called NewSong. It's about a little boy whose mother is dying, and he wants to buy her shoes so she'll look great if she "meets Jesus tonight." It is awful for many reasons, but primarily because it is more manipulative than a tween with a joystick.

Hilariously, the guy in the video almost rolls his eyes at the little boy (at 2:20 in the vid) when the little boy looks up at him and asks him, "Sir, what am I gonna do?" If the song had gone dark at this point, it would have at least had entertainment value. But no. We're stuck with horrifying theology suggesting that God sends pathetic, poverty-stricken children and cancer as object lessons to teach a cynical, shopped-out guy "what Christmas is all about."

And what is Christmas all about, anyway? From this song, I gather it's about waiting until the last minute to buy a useless gift that the recipient will never use. Or sending your unwashed child out after curfew to do your Christmas shopping.

Another Christmas song I love to hate is My Grown Up Christmas List, made popular by Amy Grant and covered by dozens of artists hoping to cash in on its sappy manipulation. It's like the interview portion of the Miss America Pageant set to elevator music:

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end
This is my grown up Christmas list

These are all good things to wish for. But there's nothing compelling, nothing personal, nothing challenging or new about saying, "I want all war to end." It's kind of a "duh" thing to say, even if you say it in a song.

Then there's a version of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas out there--maybe Mariah Carey sings it?--that's set to such a slow tempo that you can leave your house when the song starts, drive to St. Charles to chop down your Christmas tree, bring it home, and finish decorating it before the song ends. Or you can just switch the station, which is what I do.

This one might get some flack, but I absolutely hate The Soldiers' Night Before Christmas, a bastardization of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, set to sappy instrumentals. It's just simplistic, manipulative, clichéd rhyming. Here's a sample

His face so gentle, his room in such disorder,
Not how I pictured a United States soldier.
Was this the hero of whom I'd just read?
Curled up in his poncho, a floor for his bed?

I couldn´t help wonder how many lay alone
On a cold Christmas Eve in a land far from home.
Just the very thought brought a tear to my eye,
I dropped to my knees and started to cry.

I think those who serve deserve a far better tribute than this lametastic sentimentality. There are plenty of poems that honor the sacrifices that a soldier makes without resorting to maudlin clichés.

So, there you have it. I'm a giant Scrooge. Songs that are supposed to move me and touch my fossilized heart instead trigger cynicism and ridicule. But I suspect I'm not alone. What Christmas songs do you love to hate?

It's a Boy Thing. No, Wait. It's a Girl Thing, Too.

M. Peevie and I walked around the neighborhood on July 3, looking for the best places to see local (illegal) fireworks displays. As we were walking toward an alley that seemed to be the source of promising booms and flashes, we caught up with another mom and kid, seeking the same thrills.

We found a safe spot to watch the rockets' red glare, and M. Peevie immediately started talking to the little boy, who appeared to be nine or ten years old. "Do you like Pokemon cards?" she asked him. "My brother likes Pokemon cards, and he gives me some of his cards."

Neighbor-mom--let's call her Rhonda--said, "Oh, yes, Matthew loves Pokemon cards. It's a boy thing."

M. Peevie continued, without taking a breath or waiting for an answer from Matthew. "Do you like baseball cards? A. Peevie like baseball cards, too. He collects them. He has about a thousand. He even has a Babe Ruth card."

The boy may have tried to get a word in edgewise, but between M. Peevie's chatter and the frequent explosions, he really didn't stand a chance.

"She's a chatterbox," I told the mom. "She'll talk his ear off."

"Oh, that's what girls do," the mom said. "Boys don't talk as much."

Mmmmmkay, I thought. She's never met C. Peevie, obviously. Then, a few minutes later, the boy/girl comparison came up again. The boy was getting too close to the action for the mom's comfort level. "Matthew, come back here," she cautioned him, and then she turned to me. "Boys!" she said, noticing that M. Peevie had stayed back in the safe zone. "They're just so careless."

While we watched the backyard pyrotechs ignite Roman candles and aerial repeaters, Rhonda and I talked about schools, neighborhoods and parenting. Four or five more times she made references to boy/girl differences: "Oh, that's because he's a boy," she'd say; or "It's a girl thing."

It's strange to me that Rhonda assumed that so much of what happens around her, so much of what other people do, is directly tied to their gender. I wondered if she felt that way about adults, too, or if it was just children's actions that could be boxed up and labeled so neatly. It made me feel a little sad on behalf of her children, who are probably being short-changed by their mom's unconscious labeling.

It also bothered me in a sociological kind of way. If it's not just Rhonda, but it's a pervasive way of looking at the world, then I think this kind of thinking is not just inaccurate, but also disturbing and dangerous. If we assume that boys behave a certain way because they're boys, we're saying that they're not really responsible for their behaviors and choices. Same with girls.

If we say boys are good at certain things, and girls are not--or vice versa--we're unnecessarily limiting our expectations for them, and also probably limiting the opportunities and experiences that we expose them to. We won't urge our daughters to excel at math and science, for example; or we will nudge our boys away from nurturing career paths like social work and teaching--when these might actually be where their gifts lie. What an unnecessary waste!

It even bugs me when I purchase a kid meal at a fast-food joint, and the drive-through cashier asks me if I want a toy for a boy or for a girl. I have tried to keep that kind of toy sexism out of our family lexicon--but alas! it has crept in. My boys have very definite opinions about what is acceptable for a boy to play with--and the only way they'd be seen playing with a Barbie is if they were playing a game that involved throwing, mutilating, or dismembering it.

(Toy sexism doesn't go the other way in our household, though. M. Peevie is perfectly happy to play with anything that her brothers enjoy: Pokemon cards, action figures (the male-acceptable version of dolls), Hot Wheels, and tiny green army guys.)

But back to my point: I wonder if there is actual data that supports Rhonda's assumption that boys and girls are so inherently different (or possibly, that they are typically socialized so differently) that you can associate certain behaviors with their gender. Anyone?

I've read a couple of good books about parenting boys that, if I remember correctly, dispute those narrow, gender-based notions. Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys by Dan Kindlon, and Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from they Myths of Boyhood by William Pollack. Maybe I'll try to post a review of these books in the next week or so for those of you who are parenting boys and who would like some sociological perspective.

I'm sure there's at least two of you out there.

Hints for Bloggers

Not to be a snob or anything, but when I'm browsing in the blog aisle, there are certain words that immediately suggest "lame" or "cliche" to me. I will skim right on past blogs that use the following words or phrases in their self-descriptions:

Just. As in, "just me and what I'm thinking about," or "just the thoughts and ramblings of a SAHM in the Midwest."

Ramblings. As in, "Just the ramblings of a twenty-something crafter."

Musings. As in, "My musings about everyday life, etc., etc."

Random. As in, "...a Detroit resident who blogs about random thoughts and ideas."

Hilarious. As in, "musings on the day-to-day life of a home-schooling mom of six perfectly adorable children. Sometimes poignant, sometimes hilarious." I'll be the judge of hilarious, thank you. Show, don't tell.

My personal blog. Does this really give me, the prospective reader, any useful information at all about your blog? I already know it's a blog, and chances are, you have it listed in the "personal" section of whatever your syndicate is.

Anything and everything under the sun. As in, "just hilarious and random musings about anything and everything under the sun." Come on, people! You're killing me here! I'm choking on the cliches.

My feeling is, if you can't even give me a unique and catchy 10 or 15 word description that doesn't use the same words everyone else is using, then you haven't set yourself apart from the crowd. And really, you bloggers out there want to take my advice, because look at how successful this blog has become! Six loyal, devoted readers--and probably at least 20 random, accidental hits per month.

You're welcome.

Now I need to go check my description to make sure I didn't use any of these blog-busters.