Poster Child

Please don't tell the girls on our playground about Justin Beiber's recent troubles. Not that all of the children at our school would be shocked and amazed at the news coming from the Beiber camp lately. The notion of a teenager fathering a child isn't bizarre to the kids at my school. The friction comes from what is their reality and what they wish it could be. All those T-shirts and back packs are dreams of a better existence. They could go home after school and watch couples scream at each other about paternity tests on the Maury Povich Show. There is plenty of that already in their world.
They need a fresh-faced idol to worship. They need someone to sing to them about feelings and experiences they can only begin to imagine in fourth grade. And it's not just the girls. The boys rally around their own hate-Beiber standard, as tradition demands. Like the hard feelings I had against Davids Cassidy and Jones. Yes, it was a simpler time. A world without blogs and tweets, unless you counted those you heard beneath the desks after lunch. But it was all in good fun and it was a treat to have someone who was squeaky clean enough to put on a lunch box.
I don't really care who Justin calls "Baby," so long as he remembers that time has a way of catching up to child stars. Just ask Lief Garret.