My Daughter Is Listening To Bob Marley, Now What?
There comes a time in a parent’s life when the inevitable happens. Your kid starts asserting their own musical tastes. This is scary. I know that all of you out there are kidding yourselves, but I am here to tell you that a teenager’s musical preferences says a lot about what their personality is like. And God forbid, what they may be into.
When I was 14, I was listening to Ministry and Skinny Puppy and I can tell you that I was into all sorts of no good back then. Innocent were the days when Jermain Stewart (you don’t have to take your clothes off to have a good time!) and The Jets (I have a crush on you!) were blaring from my record player. Of course, at that point I was still playing with plastic horses and was reading “Sweet Valley High” books.
And yes, I did mean record player.
As I recall, my life took a dramatic turn at a certain point and the soundtrack to my life switched to Depeche Mode, Violent Femmes, The Yaz and so on. What I call my “gateway” musical period. Everyone else was listening to Motley Crue and Van Halen and if you didn’t listen to that, you were an outcast. Male or female, straight or gay … you were a “faggot”. But I pretty much didn’t care.
Other snippets of music infused memory include:
Cindy Lauper: “True Colors” - First slow dance with Sean the Mormon (7th Grade).
Belinda Carlisle: “Circle In The Sand” – First slow dance with Chad the sk8ter (8th Grade).
Depeche Mode: “But Not Tonight” – Sneaking out of the house for the first time with Paula (9th).
The Cure: “Close To Me” – Listening to this song when I got in my first car accident (incidentally with Paula) where we flew a Toyota 4 Runner off of a cliff.
Simon & Garfunkel Catalog: Summer of love 1990 … “Eugene Green!”
Charlatan’s UK: “The Only One I Know” – Played every morning for 99,000 days straight by my first live-in boyfriend and he ruined the song for me.
(I could go on and on – going back to the year MJ’s Thriller hit the billboard charts.)
So when the music that blares out of your kid’s room goes from say, Flo-Rida to Bob Marley, as a parent you start to think: Why is her soundtrack different? What’s changed? Then your mind starts to wander into dangerous “paranoid parent” mode. CALL ME IRRATIONAL, but when I think of Bob Marley this image conjures up in my head:
You know I’m right. You see it too.
So like any parent, I am just praying that Paige is just a Bob Marley lover because she is a lover of music. But even if it means something different, I can handle it. She and I can make it through just about anything okay, unless I start hearing this from her bedroom:
Then I just really won’t know what to do.
Tags: bob marley, childhood, music, paige, parenting advice, single parent
This entry was posted on Monday, October 13th, 2008 at 3:24 am and is filed under Daily. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
5 Responses to “My Daughter Is Listening To Bob Marley, Now What?”
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….yep … pretty scary stuff. My hubby used to listen to Bob and did more than just listen to his music. Even got me into the “lifestyle” it preaches at one point too. But it sounds as if your daughter’s taste in music tends to be very diverse … so this may be just ONE from the variety pack she’s into at the moment and later she’ll be into something else entirely. So — I’m thinking (actually more hoping) that she’s just appreciating it for it’s mellow artistic qualities. ????
Some people are actually arguing right now about this at the forum!
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hey hello
Please don’t be ignorant, first of all you are the mother, you teach your kids, so if your children listen to Bob Marley its not a law she has to smoke [anything]. Please at least do some good research about the Rastafari culture (they call it religion), they use the cannabis as a kind of religious stuff. And believe me, those people you see in the streets (or in tv) using dreadlocks, using tattoos, piercings, drinking alcohol smokin they are no rastafarian people even if they like to be called like that. Again do some research be informed and then talk to your kid.
PS. Yes, i like Bob Marley music. I’m not Rastafarian, I DON’T smoke anything.
cheers
.-= mikke´s last blog ..videos rockeros con ruedas =-.
I want to start writing a blog myself, thanks for the inspiration. I will keep coming back