Burning Up for the Jonas Brothers

A few days ago, I took my daughters, ages 9 and 13, to experience their very first concert. The lines were long, the sun was hot, the traffic was hell and the average age was 14. Who was on the ticket? The Jonas Brothers, of course.

I brought along lawn blankets, ear plugs and my patience, each of which came in handy throughout the evening. Once we were settled, we found that we had a long wait before the band took the stage. As we sat on the grass and grazed on our overpriced concert food, I surveyed the crowd. This was not like any concert I had ever been to in my life.

Packed in like happy sardines were families, teens, very little children and adult couples totally enjoying themselves and each other. Some were reading books. Others played cards. Many of the kids busied themselves by making new friends among their crowd neighbors and almost all of them were texting. In fact, there was a huge billboard next to the stage that displayed a number you could text to and your message would appear for all to see. Needless to say, there were countless marriage proposals to the Jonas Brothers from the underage female audience population.

When the boys finally took the stage, there was a sound like no other. Dogs across Virginia must have reacted in some fashion because the combined pitch of this sold out concert screaming for Kevin, Joe and Nick had to have been able to shatter crystal. As I said, the ear plugs came in handy...and then they made me feel very old.

I'm not sure what I expected from this concert experience, personally. I gave the tickets as birthday gifts to my daughters and really just wanted to be there to witness them witnessing it. What I got to take away from the evening was much, much more.

Leading by example, I was able to show my daughters how to have fun at an event like this. We danced. We cheered. We sang our faces off. Half of the concert, I had my 9 year old on my back so she could see. Every time I put her down, she became quiet again. On my back though, she was a screaming, singing, arm-waving fool.

Around me, I observed an interesting phenomenon. All of the parents seemed to be having similar bonding experiences with their own children. It was as if for the price of admission, we were transported into a parallel universe where parents were cool, texting was free and all dogs within ear shot thought the world was ending.

It was magical.

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You can find Kimberly in Petroville where she lives and writes daily.
An original DC Metro Moms post