Last Thursday, Amber Rose appeared on the Late Night With Seth Meyers show to promote her upcoming VH1 show and MuvaMoji app. During their conversation about her career advancements, Amber opened up about some interesting family moments she’s shared with both her mother and son, Sebastian. “So my mom actually loves when I twerk,” Amber started. “So one day my mom’s like, ‘Hey Am, do your little booty-shaking thing,’ like, she doesn’t say twerk. She’s old school. So I did it one day and my son was right there and he fell on the floor, like, cracked up laughing, just crying laughing.”
Tickled by that moment, Amber continued, “Now I twerk for him all the time. He loves it. That’s like our bonding moment.” Meyers then asked Amber if Sebastian was to ever cry on the plane would she use the twerking method to calm him down and jokingly Amber said, “I just bend over and shake my ass and then that’s it. He’s happy again!”
Muva, of course, got some heat for sharing that she twerks for her son and it got me thinking about my own family. Ever since I could remember, my cousins and I would teach one another to whine (twerk) to various reggae or soca hits during our childhood.
Despite it solely being women teaching other women in my family, the notion is still the same: Should adults be teaching or showing children dance moves that are deemed sexual? I first learned how to dance to Byron Lee’s 1994 “Soca Butterfly” from both my father, mother, and slew of cousins. As a child, I didn’t find anything sexual or provocative about the dance moves because I was taught that it’s cultural and bodies can be used in a healthy way to celebrate life and its achievements. For me, whining (or twerking) was never defined as a practice to seduce or entice another person, unless you chose to make that your intention.
To this day, older cousins and siblings can still be found teaching younger family members how to dance in my family because it’s how we bond outside of trading stories, drinking and cooking. Although I see nothing wrong with whining or twerking in front of children, I’m on the fence about Amber sharing this news publicly. Because of her past career choices, I’m sure people may think Sebastian will grow up being overtly sexual or will solely use women for their bodies. But like other toddlers who’ve grown up in Southern or Caribbean households where stimulating dance moves may be performed on the regular, he may very well grow up knowing how to treat women and that there is a time and a place for such dancing.
Watch Amber Rose describe their family bonding moments in full in the video below. What do you think?
