OK, so I’ve had my 9 year old daughter in dance classes for a few years now. She loved the ballet and tap. After a few years of that, she wanted to branch out into gymnastics, so I said OK. Her latest thing, though, is hip hop. I told her she had to make some choices, because she couldn’t get so involved in dance that her school grades suffered.

So fast forward to tonight. She’s ditched the ballet and tap in favor of hip hop, but needs to practice. So on to iTunes I go to get her music. Now I love my daughter, but getting her to move to the beat on some of these songs is like trying to teach a two by four. Still, we’re at the CD player, listening to the same song over and over, clapping the beat, then graduating to walking the beat. Then she tells me her teacher wants her to “shake her butt and walk with attitude”.

Take a breath, dad. You’ve seen the hip hop performances before…they’re clean.

The only problem is that her version of shaking her butt looks more like a crippling leg injury. I can’t let her take the stage looking like she’s trying to walk while her legs are dropping off, and my wife (who makes my jaw drop whenever she dances) is relaxing in bed after spending the day with our son, who is a miniature version of The Punisher in smelly diapers.

So what’s a dad to do? I paused to take a breath, made sure the blinds were closed, then began shaking my butt across the living room! I don’t know which was worse, the sudden pain in the small of my back or my daughter’s high pitched “EEEEWWW GROOOOOOSSSS!” Then she started laughing at me. Insult to injury until I started laughing too. Soon both of us were busting a move across the living room and laughing at each other.

The more she was grossed out at the old guy in the living room the more I danced, gradually turning hip hop into hip fracture. Eventually she got tired of seeing me and taught me the “right way” to do it.

But hey…she got it down. Mission accomplished.