Modeling

Cleo may only be a year old, but L. and I have definitely decided - and the parenting books are all with us on this - that it's not too early to think about modeling.

Modeling, that is, types of behavior. Want your girl to have an open mind towards swimming? Well, throw yourself in the pool, before immersing her. Want her to develop into a toddler who eats more than Chicken McNuggets and pepperoni pizza? Have some yogurt and granola while she's watching - or, better yet, share some of your spinach and navy bean salad with her.

We do our best, in this regard, but there's no doubt in my mind that we've also modeled some less-than-desirable traits (and will continue to, with the roughly forty hours of background Univision broadcasts of World Cup soccer that will fill our kitchen over the next month). Still, it's fair to say that it's something we think about - which is why I was rubbed the wrong way by the twenty-something d.j. on WTMD this afternoon.

"Call in with your requests," he said, "as long as it's not Nickelback, or Three Doors Down." And then he announced - a bit smugly, it seemed to me - that the next song would be a tune by Macy Gray.

Now, I'm no fan of Nickelback, or opponent of Macy Gray, and certainly he can play whatever he wants to (this post is for you, Montana-based libertarians!). But, from another perspective, he was doing some modeling: creating a musical profile that he hoped we might then emulate.

And to what end, I wondered? Perhaps it will matter, someday, in some junior high lunchroom, whether Cleo likes Nickelback or not. (In fact, the more that I think about it, the more that I'm sure that it will.) But that's not the sort of moment for which we're really trying to prepare her. Or, more precisely, our modeling is meant, I think, to show her the possible joys of life, and the pleasures of a wide range of tastes. It's not meant, for the most part, to dissuade, or to rule out, or to mock. Sure, we don't want her putting her finger in the outlet, and we're doing our best to offer models that imply the appeal of a life that's not based around motel-based crystal meth labs. But if she winds up saying, to 13-year-old classmates, that she enjoys Three Doors Down, I don't think we'll consider ourselves failures as parents. As long as she then bites into the carrot sticks that we packed.