Kennedy and Mal were the peak age for loving Lizzie McGuire when it was on TV, and Hilary Duff seemed so sweet and untroubled that Dave and I (apparently "tougher" than most of my kids' friends' parents) had no problem sitting and watching the show, and then the movie, with them. As a matter of fact, when the teenaged Hilary Duff left television for a music career, I proposed we go to her concert. And when I discovered that the Toronto show was sold out, I bought tickets for a show in Cleveland — which conveniently landed on our March Break — and we made a big family trip out of it. At the time (twenty-two years ago!) Hilary had a punk princess line of little girl clothes in the now defunct Zellers (Stuff by Duff), and Kennedy and Mal each got to choose an outfit and be prepared for their first concert, at nine and six years old (Mal lost a tooth on the drive there, they were so little). The tickets were not great — pretty high up and to the rear in a hockey arena — but it was really an incredible joy to witness your kids first having this kind of an interactive (singing and clapping) experience with someone they have long idolised through a screen. (Perhaps another time I'll write about the rest of that week and the fun we had at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the zoo, and the science centre; Cleveland was a serendipitously amazing destination after all).
Kennedy and Mal continued to follow Hilary Duff's career through the years — they even went to a Hilary Duff-themed drag concert a couple of years ago — and Kennedy was sorely disappointed when Duff had a very small show in Toronto last year, for which tickets were impossible to get. So when Kennedy told me that Duff would be having a big tour this summer, and confirmed that, yes, she would like tickets for her birthday, I got her a pair. And when it turned out that Zach had to travel for work over her birthday and the concert, Kennedy asked me to go with her. And let me tell you, the joy of watching that kid thirty-one-year-old woman singing along to every song, dancing and clapping and being at one with the thousands of other (mostly) young women who grew up alongside the still seemingly sweet and untroublesome Hilary Duff, was everything to me; what dreams are made of, as it were. And shall I point out the matching T-shirts Kennedy made for us? Hey now!
The concert was plenty of fun — the vibe with an audience filled with positivity was immaculate — and there were plenty of pyrotechnics and costume changes and Hilary Duff said all the right things to make young women feel connected and seen; so happy Kennedy decided to take me along.
