In what may prove to be my biggest mistake of the year, I let my kids watch the Justin Bieber documentary a few weeks ago. I had heard it was a great story of someone who worked hard to meet his goals, and I figured the kids would enjoy it. They did. I will confess, I didn’t hate it either.
However . . . ever since we saw the movie, my daughter India has displayed an ever-growing obsession with Justin Bieber. It’s the kind of behavior I would expect from, say, a 13-year-old girl. But not from a FOUR YEAR OLD. And it’s kind of freaking me out.
It started with a lot of questions about his family status. She would be day-dreaming in the car and suddenly ask me if Justin Bieber had a sister. Or if maybe he didn’t have parents and needed to be adopted. Maybe by us.
Then she got a little more serious, declaring her intentions to marry him. She and her best friend Timory had a conversations about it, too. At one point, Timory revealed that she, too, planned to marry Justin Bieber. They argued about it for about fifteen minutes. It got ugly. Timory? ALSO FOUR.
Then came the pictures. She started spending exorbitant amounts of time drawing pictures of she and Justin Bieber in romantic settings. They might be holding hands in a field, or in a boat watching floating lanterns. There was one where she was riding and unicorn and Justin was riding a horse (because UNICORNS ARE ONLY FOR GIRLS, MOM). There have been many, many wedding pictures drawn as well. Nearly every free moment she has is spent drawing random tableaus of she and Justin Bieber, like some kind of bad 80’s movie montage.
Today she was drawing quite an elaborate new scene (they were simultaneously surfing, looking at fireworks, and fishing) and I decided to film it, just to document how absolutely insane this is. But after I uploaded it to Youtube, my sidebar populated with other videos of obsessive preschool-aged girls, most notably this one of a three-year-old in hysterics over not seeing Justin every day (which apparently everyone in the world has seen but me.)
I did feel a bit calmer after watching this video. At least she’s not as bad as this girl. It won’t get this bad.
Right?
RIGHT???
I have had a few talks with her to try to temper her expecations, but she becomes very belligerent at any suggestions that he might be a bit too old for her. Someone gave me the idea of having her think of the positive qualities in Justin that she might like in a boy someday, and to start praying with her about marrying that kind of boy. I thought that sounded sweet, so last night at bedtime as I prayed for her, I also asked God to prepare a kind and funny boy to someday be her husband.
At which point, she said straight up and said to me point-blank, “PRAY THAT IT’S JUSTIN BIEBER, MOM!”
Awesome.
