Kids 'Make it Rain' on Mom: Bad Parenting or Just Fun?

The latest viral video on Youtube shows a woman allowing her two sons to throw money on her — or rather, “make it rain” — while she dances provocatively. The video starts innocently enough: mom and kids have fake tattoos on their faces from what looks like hours of play. Then, cue the booty music — in this instance Trina’s “5 Star Chick” — and “mom” transforms into [insert stripper name] the exotic dancer. Really, mom? The kids also take their cues and begin showering their sexy mother with money. In one shot the younger boy, who looks like he might still be in Pull-ups, wants to make sure the fake bill he is putting on her belly stays there. It doesn’t. Then the kicker: mom allows her older son to spray whipped cream on her and later showers herself with mac and cheese.  First of all: where exactly do little boys learn that throwing money at a woman is ever a good idea? Was there a field trip to the strip club? Too many hip hop videos? Besides the video being all types of wrong, as noted by the Huffington Post, the fact that she, an African-American woman, allows herself to be objectified by her own children is even more troubling and says a lot more about how she views herself than it does her children. Or perhaps she too is responding to the messages of what a “sexy” African-American woman should look and act like as seen in music videos. Sure, the fake money, whipped cream and the gyrating might have been for laughs in this particular household but what mom did in jest may ultimately lay a foundation for how her sons will view women. In this case we can’t blame the children if, as one blog commenter put it, they turn into “little pimps in training.” What do you think?