Revoking the parent card

I am by all rights a cool mom. At least in my opinion I’m cool. I’m sure other freakishly obsessive controlling parents would color me un-cool, too open and too forthcoming with my 14 year old son. But he still talks to me so I consider my approach, at least so far, successful. He’s starting high school this month so ask me in four years how this approach truly worked.

My son has inherited my affinity for movies. Inherited is probably a strong word. Let’s be honest. I’ve been molding and shaping his exposure to film since I took him to see the re-release of The Wizard of Oz when he was three years old. Oh yes, he’s all about the wieldy action adventure popcorn movie but he is also a closeted rom-com watcher (he’ll never admit it), thinks the Bond movies with Sean Connery are the best ones, can recognize Cary Grant and likes Charlie Chaplin (although I have to reluctantly give a nod to my mother in law for that influence). He loves movies. I’m mama duck proud.

Now that he has hit 14, PG-13 is sooooooo yesterday’s news and he is beginning to push the “R” rated envelope for movie watching. I admit, in some cases an “R” in 1984 is not quite like an “R” in 2010. Parental latitude has been given. So his suggestion for us to watch Revenge of the Nerds on a recent Saturday night, seemed reasonable.

Having seen it a few times, I did the mental rolodex, thumbed through the scenes in my head. Yeah ok – some language, maybe a quick boob shot, some sex references…how bad can it be? I mean 16 Candles has a full on boob shot of Caroline Montfort in the shower and that was PG-13. And the kid goes to public school. He’s been hearing f-bombs on the playground since he was 6 – at least I would be sitting next to him during the movie offering full-on parental support.

Important parenting tip. If it’s been, oh say, 15 years since you’ve seen a movie, it may be a good idea to do a quick refresh of said movie in lieu of relying solely on the mental rolodex . IMDB.com has a nifty little “parental advisory” feature of every film which outlines the f-bombs and other adult situations. It’s a nice little memory jogger. Too bad I didn’t use it in this instance.

Apparently my mental rolodex failed to recall these key classic Revenge of Nerd film moments:

1. The “hair pie” reference. Yeah. I know. It’s a really dated and rarely used slang term to reference the coochie. It’s so dated it prompted the following question: “Mom, what’s a hair pie?” Mental head slap.
    
2. The panty raid scene which includes multiple scantily clad girls running up and down the dorm room screaming, full on boob shots bouncing up and down.
    
3. The cameras in the shower scene which sets up the classic movie utterance by “Booger”….”We’ve got bush, we’ve got bush!” I’m not sure if I should be relieved or worried my son didn’t ask “Mom, what’s a bush”. I think he figured that one out on his own. 

At that point I wouldn’t have been surprised if Social Services broke down my front door with an axe and revoked my parent card with all rights and privileges therein. My son, of course, thought the movie was hilarious and I’m sure I’ve officially locked in my position as the coolest mom on the planet award – at least for one day.

And in an act of spousal transparency I disclosed some of the more mature elements of this classic feature film to my spouse, who responded with a Beavis and Butthead laugh.

“Heh heh, heh-heh-heh – you said bush.”