Riley's hero Velma

Riley’s hero Velma

The other morning while my daughter and I were rocking out to the Hex Girls in the car she pointed out that the song was from the Scooby Doo episode where Daphne was really jealous because Fred was giving the Hex Girls attention. She said “wasn’t that silly Mama, Daphne thought Fred liked the Hex Girls more than her!” I wanted to tell her that of course Fred would be a fool not to like the Hex Girls more than Daphne, but I was a good Mom and stuck to the lesson plan.

Unfortunately most of stories involving both her Dad and me don’t include him giving attention to other females. He’s kind of an introvert and doesn’t give attention to many people at all. My example was from when her Daddy was in a band and I had to contend with all kinds of women trying to get him out of his pants after seeing him perform. I worded it a little differently for her since she spends most saturday mornings trying to get him into his pants as soon as possible usually with the words “eww, Daddy, quit showing me your butt!” It brought me back to one particular night when I heard a few of these women in the ladies room talking about the best possible way to get my husband (then boyfriend) to come home with them. When I watched them approach him twenty minutes later when he was trying to make his way back to the merch booth I giggled a little bit with a friend watching him squirm his way out of the conversation gracefully.

I wasn’t always as confident when it came to my status as “girlfriend”. In fact, the guy I dated for the entirety of my twenties made me fear he would walk out the door at any moment. I was jealous of every girl who he gave any attention to. He was also a musician and I spent my every moment at his shows making sure every female in that audience knew he was spoken for. The fact that he was an emotionally and psychologically abusive prick probably played a significant role in this. Or it could have been that my gut was right and he did in fact go home with girls all the time when I wasn’t there to police the situation. I look back at how stupid I was to be jealous. I was too good for him and he knew it which is why he had to try to murder my self-esteem every chance he got to make sure I wouldn’t leave him. They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and I think that relationship did just that for my self-esteem. I came out of that relationship knowing I would never let myself feel that way again.

Thorn of the Hex Girls

Thorn of the Hex Girls

Five year olds don’t really understand romantic jealousy yet. They do understand what it feels like to not be the most important person in the room though and how that makes them feel toward any person sucking up the attention. My words to my daughter went something like this: Fred was giving the attention to the Hex Girls because he saw how talented they were and he wanted to tell them he thought so. That didn’t mean that he liked Daphne any less. Fred can’t give all of his attention to Daphne all the time. Daphne could have gone over and talked to the Hex Girls with Fred and she could have made three new friends. That was pretty silly of Daphne. My daughter’s response to this was: Yeah, Daphne was being silly. Velma didn’t care that Shaggy and Scooby were talking to the Hex Girls. But Mama, who is Velma’s friend, Shaggy or Scooby?

Lesson number two of the morning was that Velma didn’t have a boyfriend because she didn’t need a boyfriend. I didn’t get into why Scooby would not be a suitable boyfriend for Velma since he is a dog. We spent the rest of the drive rocking out to the Hex Girls together with me silently thanking God that my girl is more of a Velma than a Daphne.

 

 

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