POP

''Now can I please go outside and play mom?''

''No, you're going to sit here and watch until Johnny and Baby do ''the lift'' and Baby's dad realizes that Johnny wasn’t Penny's baby daddy after all!''

For those of you who don't know, Johnny is Patrick Swayze and Baby is Jennifer Grey in the BEST romantic, I want to abandon my plans of being a successful doctor and instead teach the Mambo with Patrick Swayze at a family holiday camp, movie....Dirty Dancing.

I have this obsession with making sure my kids are connoisseurs of the pop icons I was obsessed with growing up, both during my childhood and my later college years. Well, the pop sensations ''I'' consider icons.

There is no way in hell my kids will not recognize a song from the Thriller or Like A Virgin album.

Some parents want their kids to be able to read before even starting school, I, on the other hand think it's undeniably important that they are able to perform, with their air guitar of course, the beyond sensational guitar solo from Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lot of Love. (Hardly what you would call a pop icon from the 80-90s but nonetheless of utmost importance....and this proven by the fact that Word spellcheck just corrected the word Zeppelin when I accidentally wrote it with only 1 p).

(I'm going to save the Snoop and Dr. Dre for when they get just a little older).

Music and movies played a leading role in my life and still do.

Am I alone?

Maybe it's a way for me to keep in touch with my younger self , or maybe it's a just a need for me to want to share with my kids the things that helped shaped my life and experiences.

(I'm sure my parents are real happy to hear that Dirty Dancing and Snoop are things I consider life shaping factors in my life:-))

I try not to get to compulsive about it, but rest assured, I am thoroughly satisfied when my kids scream out ''Micheal Jackson'' after only a few notes of P.Y.T on the radio.

I am fully aware that they, themselves, are going to have their very own life shaping music and movie icons, but at least they will KNOW about mine....even if half the time they'll be rolling their eyes at their crazy mom doing air drum solos to Ramble On.

(p.s I did not actually force my daughter to sit through Dirty Dancing....well, just through the good parts:-))