5 TLC Songs That Are Anthems For My Teenage Daughters

How the pop group's music catalog helps show a girl's worth

Babies. They really oughta hand out how-to books to parents, right? At least a manual of sorts on changing diapers and what that weird rash on their skin is. Or a digital subscription to what the heck you’re supposed to do when they hit two years of age and start responding to every single question with “NO!” or some other word you wish they hadn’t picked up along the way.

But I imagine the marketing wizards at any baby book business or website would throw up a new type of paywall when those babies get older and become teenagers. “Congratulations! Your child is 13 years old! To proceed, payments will be increased to $99 per month.”

Ninety-nine dollars is actually a bargain, I’d think, for helpful tips on managing all that comes with raising teenagers. We have two of them. That means double the attitude. Double the eye rolls. Double the one-word responses to benign questions like “How was your day?” Did I mention they’re both girls?

Don’t want no scrubs

I don’t want to get into the mechanics of teenage girls. It’s a world that I haven’t visited since I was a teen myself. That was in the late ‘90s. And from what I recall, these were the major themes from those years:

• Teenage girls were much, much more into the Titanic movie than any boy I knew.

• Teenage girls generally smell much better than teenage boys.

• Teenage girls were never quite as much into me as I was into them.

• Teenage girls embraced three songs as unofficial female empowerment anthems: “You Oughta Know” by Alanis Morissette, “Wannabe” by The Spice Girls, and “No Scrubs” by TLC.

Of course, none of these songs offended me quite like “No Scrubs.” Why? I hated the reference to flirtatious men as scrubs. I hated the bashing of the guy hanging out his friend's passenger side to speak to girls. I hated the unending need to tell us, the male species, that if we didn't have any money we would not be welcome to converse with the women of TLC.

Mostly I hated "No Scrubs" the way Carly Simon's man must've hated "You're So Vain." I hated it the way some women hated the misogyny found in rap songs. I hated "No Scrubs" because I, in many ways was indeed a scrub myself.

When “No Scrubs” was at its radio peak (and by peak I mean played 100 times a day) I was a freshman in college with no money and no car. Meaning if I was to speak to a woman for any reason from a vehicle it was likely to be from the passenger side of my best friend's ride. That’s me. A scrub.

When I met my soon-to-be-wife in 2001, I learned she liked the song "No Scrubs". This didn't end our relationship. Instead it was something I accepted. Now as we raise our daughters, my views on the girl anthems from past years have changed. And TLC provided some great songs with messages I hope my daughters will, in some capacity, embrace, enjoy, and take hold of as an effort to not end up marrying a "scrub" of any sort in the future.

If you don't have a car and you're walkin'
Oh, yes son, I'm talkin' to you
If you live at home wit' your momma
Oh, yes son, I'm talkin' to you
If you have a shorty that you don't show love
Oh, yes son, I'm talkin' to you
Wanna get wit' me wit' no money
Oh no, I don't want no scrub

TLC’s requirements for a man aren’t vastly different from what I want for our girls. I hope they find one who:
a) has a suitable mode of transportation and doesn't have to walk places
b) doesn't live at home with his mom because he has a respectable, well-paying job
c) is not currently dating someone else he isn't showing love to while he is also trying to date my daughter
d) wants to get with my daughter while simultaneously having enough money to take her on a proper date.

“No Scrubs” is 25 years old this year. And I can see why my wife, or any woman, likes the song. It's catchy, it's powerful, and it's performed by the best female pop group of all time. Its sonic permeance could only come from TLC.

What about your friends?

I know enough about females to know that in middle and high school, friendships can be tenuous at best. With the drop of a hat or the whisper of a rumor, a grade-school bond can be severed with back-stabbing cruelty. Girls are different from boys. Boys will throw punches in the hallway and then a few hours later be playing video games together.

Girls will cause a Cold War. They’ll force other girls to choose sides. They’ll passive-aggressively throw jabs at another girl in hopes of setting their reputation up in flames. This can last for weeks, months, even lifetimes. Girls are just different than boys. But T-Boz (The “T” in TLC) wants to make it clear as to who her true friends are:

People try to say I act a little funny
But that's just a figure of speech to me
They tell me I changed because I got money
But if you were there before, then you're still down with me

Don’t think that money has made life for T-Boz easy. She was born with sickle-cell disease that would keep her away from recording and touring with TLC for weeks, even months at a time. On top of that, a potentially fatal brain tumor created more complications in her career. So when T-Boz is questioning your friendship, she’s not telling you that she needs you. She’s letting you know that whatever fickleness you might bring, it won’t stop her. It won’t keep her from doing what she does. It won’t keep her from being who she is. She is strong, with or without you.

“What About Your Friends” helped TLC burst onto the scene in 1992. It wasn't a pop ballad. It wasn’t some over-sexualized song. It’s about friendship. When my girls hear it, I hope they understand the importance of female friendships. Not just in choosing other girls to invest time in, but being worthy of investing in themselves. "What About Your Friends" came out long before social media ruled our lives. Now the opportunities to ruin friendships exist through absurd methods like body-shaming via Instagram or cowardly bullying others on a group text. One girl can annihilate another girl's feelings without ever really looking her in the eye. My prayer is that my daughters find friends to love and respect for life.

I don’t understand the ways of the world today

"Sumthin' Wicked This Way Comes" longs for the old days, the perceived better days, where life was simpler and the world was not as crazy. Much of the song can be lyrically picked apart and given over to life mantras, but T-Boz's second verse stands out. Because women today are often put into pre-packaged categories based on appearance, status, or perceived attitudes, the world rarely seeks to learn about them and who they really are.

What gave you the right to misjudge me
And write me off on the wall
Acting as if you understand me
In reality, you just don't know me at all

We stress to our daughters the importance of their heart, not their bodies. Be healthy, yes, but fight the perception of the world, be yourself, trust God, and ignore those seeking to judge you based on things they don't know about you.

Y’all don’t hear me

A pop radio hit only becomes iconic if we listen to it. Not hear. Listen. When “Waterfalls” hit the airwaves, in 1994, many radio stations left off the biggest part of the song. At least where I grew up. Left-Eye's phenomenal rap is left out. Completely. Just a weird few seconds of instrumental interlude before the chorus closes the song. And because she never did anything in her short life half-heartedly, skipping past Left Eye’s verse is like stripping a rainbow of its color.

Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes was arguably the heart and soul of TLC. She was the passionate one. The combative one. The crazy one. The one media outlets remember for accidentally burning down the house of her NFL boyfriend. They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Left Eye proved it.

But when you dig beyond the headlines, the conflict, the drama, you find someone bursting with creativity and love for others. In 2002, Left Eye went on a trip to Honduras to find herself. To rediscover something she felt she had lost. Her spiritual retreat was filmed. It was supposed to be 30 days. On the 26th day, she died. And all that surrounds her passing, the mystery, the tragedy, the odd feeling of distance and closeness captured in the documentary, all of it ties to Waterfalls. The slick sound that gives hope.

Don't go chasing waterfalls
Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to
I know that you're gonna have it your way or nothing at all
But I think you're moving too fast

It's a song about gang violence. It’s a song about HIV. But in the end, it’s a song about hope. And the realness of it only deepens when Left Eye comes on and says "I seen a rainbow yesterday." A subtle reminder of hope during grim times. Something we all need.

And we all want the best in life. I want the best for my daughters. But I want them to understand the right path for success isn’t chasing things the world offers. After seeing the rainbow, Left Eye says this:

but too many storms
Have come and gone, leaving a trace of not one God-given ray
Is it because my life is ten shades of gray, I pray
All ten fade away, seldom praise Him for the sunny days

I hope my girls recognize the sunny days and praise God for every one of them. None of us are promised tomorrow. In the documentary Last Days of Left Eye, the late singer says this: “I believe that every time there is a struggle, it’s a preparation for what’s to come.” I’m hopeful my daughters use the hard times as a chance to grow. Because God will bring the rainbow no matter how hard the storm might become.

Who defines what’s pretty?

90% of teen girls follow at least one account on social media that makes them feel less beautiful.

The world tells us what beauty is. They don't allow us to define it for ourselves. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder if that beholder is a designer, cosmetics manufacturer, or a reality show producer.

But TLC broke the narrative with the song “Unpretty” in 2000.

Never insecure until I met you
Now I'm bein' stupid
I used to be so cute to me
Just a little bit skinny
Why do I look to all these things
To keep you happy?
Maybe get rid of you
And then I'll get back to me

It is not easy to convince my wife that she is beautiful. And more and more I’m certain my daughters are feeling a bit more pressure to be pretty the way the world tells them to be pretty.

For my daughters (and my wife), I never want them to feel "unpretty". I never want them to feel insecure because some boy along the way told them they weren't skinny enough, their hair wasn't fixed right, or they didn't look like an Instagram model.

In TLC's video for "Unpretty", there's a scene where Chili (Rozonda Thomas) plays the role of a girlfriend who's boyfriend is strongly suggesting she get breast implants. As she’s in the operating room in a hospital gown prepped for the procedure, she sees another young woman undergoing the same thing. It’s then she realizes she doesn’t want this. She gets up and runs away from the facility. It's a gripping scene, one that’s stayed with me since seeing it for the first time 24 years ago.

If we need influencers in 2024, let’s revisit this song. This video. These four minutes and forty-five seconds are influential enough.

Rozonda Thomas is a grandmother now. Just recently her son Tron and his wife had a baby girl. It’s the same son who, back in 2013 was a victim of cyberbullying. Chili petitioned and got the website posting derogatory comments about her son to reverse course. Chili also founded a non-profit called Chili’s Crew which focuses on building self-esteem in teenage girls.

Let my daughters know they don't need to ever feel unpretty. They don’t even need to wait for a rainbow to see the beauty. It just takes a look in the mirror. Our oldest with dozens of freckles blanketing her face. Our youngest with long dark hair and olive skin. But even the mirror fails to point to the beauty inside. Only God can do that.

Yes, teenage girls should come with manuals. There are more emotions than this 42-year-old dad can handle. More things seem unimportant to me that are actually life-altering for them. And I don’t understand it all. I certainly didn’t when I was a teenager. I’m pretty sure I won’t now.

But I know the worth of these teenage girls is more than skin deep. It’s more than the posts from a toxic influencer. It’s more than the boneheaded opinions of teenage boys.

And I’m glad TLC gave us songs to tell them that.