It’s hard to find time to watch sports or the things I like to watch when the kids are around. For sports, I have to watch it live or I don’t want to watch it at all (and settle for highlights and recaps). The hard part is that there are sometimes things that are made for more mature audiences…I’m looking at you - scary commercials during October!

We were watching the Copa America Cup final and it was at halftime that Shakira came out. I always question whether I want to let my kids watch these types of performances because I am worried that it’ll program their brains in some way that may not be great. Alas, I let this one go and they got to watch the show. Right when Shakira came out in her sparkly dress and started to dance, my 5 year old daughter said that she really liked her. I was going to groan on the inside, but my daughter added that it was the music that she liked. Whew.

My 3 year old son was watching the performance also and about halfway through, Shakira got on the ground. My son asked a very direct question - why was Shakira on the ground shaking her booty? After scanning my brain for a million possible answers to that very insightful question, I said that it was part of her dance routine and they choreographed it that way. I tried to make it sound as matter of fact as possible. No follow-up questions were fired back and that was that.

My kids absorbed the rest of the performance and watched the rest of the soccer match. I just wanted to expose more soccer to my kids because they currently have an interest in it. I did not expect some of the reactions to the halftime show, but at least it was somewhat humorous and lighthearted. I’m also glad that I didn’t have to answer many more questions since I may eventually be speechless as to why Shakira was doing what she was doing.