We decorated the minivan with chalk paint and wrote “We <3 Taylor Swift” on the windows. It was 2011, and my 9-year-old daughter sported a cute bob haircut, glasses, a cowboy hat, and a glow stick necklace.
It was the Speak Now tour, otherwise known to me as “too much money for a 9-year-old, but it made a great Christmas morning gift concert.” With binoculars in tow, we joined a few other mom-daughter duos and headed to McDonald’s for Happy Meals. We tailgated in the parking lot, eating chicken McNuggets while listening to Taylor Swift. The moms came prepared with our pre-mixed cocktails.
We made our way to our seats and were almost in the very last row in the section dead center to the main stage. As Taylor Swift made her appearance, I watched my daughter peer through the binoculars and scream. She and her cousin would scream, then look at each other excitedly, then look back through their binoculars and scream some more.
She was laser-focused on the stage, and I was just as focused on watching her. Her pure bliss when seeing her favorite singer in person gave me that distinctive feeling a parent gets when they share a special moment with their child. It was as if I was experiencing it for the first time, too. I remember wishing I could freeze it in my brain because I knew there would never be another first concert with her.
As my daughter moved through adolescence, it became increasingly difficult to connect with her until Taylor Swift’s Eras tour gave us another chance.
As she grew older, I struggled to connect with her
It wasn’t that long ago I was preparing to talk to my daughter about getting her period. Unlike my own mother, I wanted to be proactive. I put together feminine hygiene supplies and an age-appropriate book into a shoebox. I think I put some “fun” things in the box, too, like hair ties and lip gloss. That’s something I would do because I either read about it in a magazine or a book.
When I sat on her bed with her, I told her that I wanted to give this to her because, unlike my mom, who didn’t talk to me about such things, I wanted to talk to her. She responded by tossing the box on the ground, saying, “I wish you were more like your mom.” It felt like she punched me.
I didn’t know how to respond, so I left her room feeling deflated. When I shared this exchange with other moms, I recall getting responses like, “Don’t take it personally. This is how they are at this age.” But it felt pretty damn personal.
I carried on and didn’t give up because that’s what moms do.
We went to more Taylor Swift concerts together
After that first concert, we saw Taylor Swift two more times when my daughter was 11 and 13 at the Red and 1989 tours.
Although a part of me couldn’t believe I was spending this much money on my young daughter’s birthday or Christmas present, there was another part of me that knew this was a chance for connection between us. During those years, she started wearing contact lenses, grew her hair long, began shaving her legs, made the duck face in photos, and was changing as young teenage girls do. And it felt like it all happened overnight. When I look at photos from these two concerts, I can see the changes. She goes from looking cute to pretty and from silly to self-aware.
Taylor Swift’s Reputation Tour in 2018 happened around my daughter’s sophomore year of high school and three years since the last tour. When I asked her if she wanted to get tickets, she said she didn’t like the album. Again, things were changing. I don’t know why she didn’t like the new album. She was broadening her musical taste, perhaps. She preferred going to concerts featuring Wiz Khalifa, Travis Scott, and the Chainsmokers. And she most definitely didn’t want to go with me.
I missed my Taylor Swift-loving daughter
I longed for my Taylor Swift-loving girl and wondered how I would ever find a connection with who she was becoming. There were smaller, cheaper ways to connect with my daughter. I read the same books she did or watched the same shows. But as she tumbled through those years and acquired the bumps and bruises of disappointing friendships and heartaches, I was not the person she wanted to bandage her wounds.
Our fights were mostly about her wanting to do something that I didn’t think she was ready to do. Whether it was a concert or a party, I was rarely ready to say “yes,” and she was always halfway out the door.
I remember a time she wanted to go to a friend’s house. For some reason I can’t recall, I didn’t want her to go. I told her no and she told me she was going anyway. When she moved to walk past me, I found myself physically blocking her from going down our stairs. I stood folding my arms across my chest and my legs spread wider than my hips, knees slightly bent. She tried to get around me again and I moved in front of her. My heart was racing, and I couldn’t believe my own behavior. I eventually turned around and walked away. I can’t remember if she went or not. What I do remember vividly is how I felt when it was over. I had this horrible feeling of having lost control and having said or yelled unkind things while at the same time feeling justified in saying no.
Although tiring, it shouldn’t have been surprising. My daughter always had an independent streak since she was very young. My husband and I still laugh about how she, at 5 years old, would raise her hand and say, “Excuse me,” to get our server’s attention in a restaurant so that she could change something in her order. It got to the point that if we needed our server, we would ask our young child to get their attention. She was better at it than we were.
I loved and hated, in equal measure, her self-sufficient nature.
The Eras Tour brought us together again
Fast forward to a month before the ErasTour in 2023, and we had tickets. My daughter, now 21, had just completed her junior year of college and was moving to a big city the day after the concert.
I would have to make the seven-hour drive, move her into her apartment, and help her get acclimated to a new place. And it filled me with trepidation because long car rides with her were very quiet and lonely. I would drive, and she would be looking at her phone or sleeping. If I tried to make conversation, it usually didn’t go any further than, “Who did you see last night?” and she would reply, “I don’t know. Some friends.” Gone were the days of Happy Meals and glow sticks.
We packed the car and left around 9 a.m. She had grown into her independence. And to my surprise, our drive was not only better than I expected, but I felt something shifting. Susie drove, we played Taylor Swift, and we talked about the show the night before. Together, we could appreciate the more mature and nuanced songs that Swift was singing.
We smiled and sang to our old favorites, “Mean” and “Never Ever Getting Back Together.” Those songs felt like old friends visiting us after a long time away.
I learned that “Mr. Perfectly Fine” is one of her favorite songs from many albums ago. This was new information. Did it remind her of a past crush? I had so many questions, but I decided not to ask so that we could keep talking. Nothing killed our conversations more than me asking a bunch of questions. She continued to share stories about her college life and her friends, and I savored every bit of it.
We’ve all grown
I thought about how Taylor Swift had grown, too. Like my relationship with my daughter, she was shifting into a more mature performer. She didn’t throw her head around like she did 12 years ago. She still bounces her blonde hair back and forth, but her moves are sophisticated. Like us, she also used expletives more, too.
Parenting my daughter has been a lot harder than I thought it would be. Finding a connection helped, and still does, get us through the tough times. Now that she is 22, I can see some of my mistakes more clearly. I can also see the correctness of some of my decisions.
One of those decisions was taking her to Taylor Swift concerts. In March, when she turned 22, she didn’t wince or tell me to turn it off when I blasted the song “22” and sang a bit too loudly. I think she may have even smiled at me.
Maybe Taylor Swift will continue to be part of our journey. Maybe she won’t. But when Swift’s latest album dropped, I did get a text from my daughter asking me what I thought of it. That’s not nothing.
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