Spice Girls Is the Friend Group I Hope My Daughters Have

I fell down a rabbit hole when my mom found my Spice Girls doll collection in the garage. They were just like I remembered: Mel C with a gold tooth, Emma in a baby-doll dress, Mel B in animal print, and Ginger in a red mandarin-collar dress. A defining era of my childhood in a black bag at the bottom of a 45-gallon trash bin.

They opened the door to so many firsts: my first concert—dad couldn’t stop fawning over Scary Spice—my first pair of platform sneaks, and my first celebrity break-up when Geri left the group. It felt like a moment I needed to share with my girls, so I queued up the music and just like that, it was a Spice day.

I see a bit of Spice in both of my girls. My oldest is definitely more Posh—creative and sensitive in nature—and my youngest—intense, headstrong, and pure rock n’ roll—is more Scary. In a matter of hours, I overheard the girls asking Alexa to play, “tell me what you want, what you really, really want,” or "Wannabe," as most fans know it. It's crazy to see how the single, now 30 years old, still resonates. It's fun and infectious, but the message on friendship continues to capture the hearts of kids in a way love songs can't.

I was 10 when the single dropped and inflicted with just about every pre-teen oddity you can think of. I was awkward, socially clumsy, and bucktoothed—thank God for braces. I didn't feel confident. And I had absolutely no interest in romance, which was completely at odds with the R&B princesses who were all over the radio in the 90s. It was refreshing for a couple of crazy Brits to proclaim my life didn't need to revolve around boys. That friendship served just the same purpose. They're also one of the first bands in my era to write so broadly about it: "I never thought you'd become the friend I never had" (Mama); "God help the mister who comes between me and my sisters" (Love Thing); "But we're still the best of friends, never needed to pretend, 'cause real friendship never ends" (Right Back At Ya). Though the lyrics only worked because the girls embody them.

My daughters barely blinked watching the "Wannabe" video, which is understandable because there's so much happening—I still don't know why Emma didn't give that homeless man back his hat. Watching the one-take production is like looking at five friends at the disco–four minutes of the girls dancing, singing, and accosting strangers. It didn't make a bit of sense, but it was fun because they were all together.

Their relationships off-stage were a lot like this too. They shared a lot of laughs, were fiercely loyal to one another, and God help the men who ever crossed them—look no further than Victoria Beckham's feud with Mel B's ex Eddie Murphy. They even shared clothes, and still do!

But even the the Spices' knew Spice Girls—at least how we knew them in the 90s—couldn't go on forever. Still, no one anticipated how quickly things would change when Geri Halliwell quit in 1998, right before they came to America to see me! Yes, this is all my fault.

Their first post-Ginger single, "Goodbye," captured the sadness we all shared, though they downplayed it at the time. “It’s goodbye to the past and hello to the future,” Melanie C suggested. But you couldn’t listen to the lyrics without thinking about Geri, wondering if this is where the music stopped for all of us. It’s fitting the single is the last song on the band's final studio album, Forever, a track my girls couldn't quite connect with yet. I suppose they've got a few years before they earn their Spice stripes.

I'd spent an entire afternoon pretending it was 1998 and had an emotional hangover when I sat down for dinner. But I hadn't touched my fork before I was crying into my sausage. The harmony from Mel B., Emma, Victoria, and Mel C. stripped away any composure I had left from reliving their break-up three decades later: "Goodbye my friend. I know you're gone, you said you're gone, but I can still feel you here."

I cried for so many reasons: because Geri quit, because it felt like I was 10 and they were leaving all over again, but mainly because times are different now. Pop stars seem like the same Barbie in different wigs, kids are taught a version of self-empowerment that has nothing to do with sisterhood, and the closest we’ve come to seeing a girl gang in the last decade is the list of women who’ve found themselves on the wrong side of Taylor Swift.

I was sad, but apparently not sad enough, so I restarted the track and cried some more.

Fine. I’m romanticizing more than a little. None of the Spice Girls are angels. They fight privately, feud constantly, and are notoriously squirrel-ish when it comes to reunion rumors—would someone think of the fans?!

But they are music’s greatest example that sisterhood is one of the strongest alliances girls can build. So yes, Spice Girls is the kind of friend group I hope my girls have. Not because their individual value isn’t enough, but because I know they’ll need an army to protect it.