The video: In a "Today" interview, Jennifer and Duane Tesch of Madison Heights, MI, bemoan the fact that their young daughter Kennedy, 6, was kicked off a local flag-football cheerleading squad after the Tesches questioned the appropriateness of one of the chants. (The lyrics: "Our backs ache, our skirts are too tight, we shake our booties from left to right.") Though Kennedy could technically return to the field after a year's "probation," her father says her cheerleading days are over: "We're probably going to look to get her into gymnastics."
The reaction:"I'm torn," says Paula Bernstein at Babble. It's certainly "inappropriate for kids to be saying these words," and "I'm appalled by anything that sexualizes children," but some of the media's reaction to the chant — Fox News invoked pedophilia — "sounds just a bit alarmist to me." Are we becoming overly sensitized to this issue? "I remember my friends and I (back in the 70s) singing a similar tune." Putting a six-year-old on "probation"? gripes Hortense Smith at Jezebel. What a "classy and adult way to handle a parents' concerns." The only takeaway for Kennedy, here, is that "speaking out about your concerns is a one-way ticket to punishment." Watch the clip:
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