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Pole dancing classes for kids
Filed under: Just For Moms, Big Kids, Tweens, Teens, Media
I have a video of Ellie dancing to Someday My Prince Will Come when she was about 3 years old. I don't know where she learned these moves, but in the video, she writhes around on the floor like Madonna and ends the song stretched out on the couch with one leg up in the air. If you listen carefully, you can hear me trying not to laugh while filming her. I might have been stifling my giggles, but inside I was also a little bit alarmed. She didn't know what she was doing, but the whole performance just looked a little too suggestive for my comfort.
Ellie is one of those kids who thinks she wants to grow up fast. She can't wait to have long fingernails, wear high heels and even has her eye on a kid-sized cocktail-looking dress she spotted at Macy's recently. She's never heard of pole-dancing, but if she had, I know she would want to try it. That will happen over my dead body.
I am not the only one who finds it inappropriate for little girls to mimic strippers in the name of exercise. In Australia, pole-dancing classes are offered for children as young as seven years old and this has critics accusing those who run the classes of "sexualizing young children."
The Australian Family Association's spokeswoman, Angela Conway, says, "There are plenty of exercise tools out there. Why choose a pole, the classic phallic symbol of the pornographic world."
But the parents and kids who support it say there is nothing sexual about it and that it is just a fun way to get some exercise and build up strength. Since I haven't personally seen a child pole-dancing, I can't really say whether or not it looks sexual, but I just don't see how it wouldn't. Would you let your child take a pole dancing class?
Ellie is one of those kids who thinks she wants to grow up fast. She can't wait to have long fingernails, wear high heels and even has her eye on a kid-sized cocktail-looking dress she spotted at Macy's recently. She's never heard of pole-dancing, but if she had, I know she would want to try it. That will happen over my dead body.
I am not the only one who finds it inappropriate for little girls to mimic strippers in the name of exercise. In Australia, pole-dancing classes are offered for children as young as seven years old and this has critics accusing those who run the classes of "sexualizing young children."
The Australian Family Association's spokeswoman, Angela Conway, says, "There are plenty of exercise tools out there. Why choose a pole, the classic phallic symbol of the pornographic world."
But the parents and kids who support it say there is nothing sexual about it and that it is just a fun way to get some exercise and build up strength. Since I haven't personally seen a child pole-dancing, I can't really say whether or not it looks sexual, but I just don't see how it wouldn't. Would you let your child take a pole dancing class?
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
10-11-2007 @ 6:49PM
queenoqueens said...Pole Dancing? Really?
Oh for the love of God!
I'd like to line up these parents and go all 3 stooges on them.
Reply
10-11-2007 @ 8:07PM
Eva said...NO. Over my dead body, as you said.
Reply
10-11-2007 @ 9:34PM
Joy said...I think now I've finally heard everything.
Absolutly N-O way would I ever allow this.
Reply
10-11-2007 @ 9:49PM
Amanda said...no
no
NO
and,
HELL
NO!!!!!
Reply
10-11-2007 @ 10:16PM
Anna V. said...Ah, to be the voice of dissent.
Yes, I would let my daughter take an exercise class centered around pole-dancing. It's not going to make her into a whore/stripper/bad person, but it probably would cement further her love of dance and exercise. I'd let her belly dance too, which is a great way to have fun and get fit.
Have any of you nay-sayers seen any of these classes, or experienced them for yourselves? Or are you just automatically assuming the worst? Where's that liberal, live-and-let-live attitude so famous around here?
Reply
10-12-2007 @ 12:00AM
chickenleetle said...It won't turn them into a "bad person", BUT this is like encouraging stripper-cise to a young child, it is an exercise based on what strippers do. Plain and simple.
Belly-dancing may be provocative, but the point isn't to end up without clothes at the end. There is no comparison. I also am not a believer that all these classes "empower" women or crap like that either.
I haven't seen the classes, but there are many healthy alternatives, LIKE belly dancing (where a not-so-flat belly is encouraged and found sexy!). Classes based on traditional dance, not stripping for men's pleasure. Ugh.
Reply
10-12-2007 @ 12:56AM
CLM said...Sorry, voice of dissent, seen the pole-dancing classes. There are oh so many other ways to encourage a love of dance and/or athleticism and each one of them is more appropriate for a young girl (or boy for that matter).
Reply