As a parent, I feel an inordinate amount of pressure to prevent my kid from making the same mistakes I made. Granted, everything I experienced as a child made me the man I am today—no regrets ‘cause the ends justify the means and all that, right?
Still, I feel like it’s my job to impart the wisdom gained from youthful indiscretions so she can avoid some of the awkwardness and lingering regret I still feel when I look back on so much wasted time and energy.
I am talking, of course, about listening to terrible, terrible music.
From an ill-fated preteen foray into the likes of New Kids on the Block right through to regrettable “12 cassettes for a penny” music club list-fillers like C&C Music Factory, my early musical tastes were—to put it mildly—eclectically disturbing.
Even an awakening around age 14, when I first discovered the discordant joys of punk rock and the harmonious splendor of the mid-90s rock and alt scene, couldn’t completely prevent the creeping in of regrettable influences.
I had a Creed album, for crying out loud. CREED.
By the time I helped spawn life into this world, though, I’d settled into a pretty solid rotation of dirty, soulful folk; pissed-off, political punk and ska; and various rock to round it all out.
And in the early days it was easy enough to impose these tastes on my unsuspecting daughter. We’d bounce around the living room on Daddy-Daughter Ska Dance Saturdays, kicking and spinning to the Planet Smashers or Less Than Jake. I’d rock her to sleep with a mix of Danny Michel and City and Colour. Even the kids’ music was a throwback to my youth—Sesame Street and Muppets instead of Wiggles or Backyardigans.
But my control—my beautiful, simple control—is already slipping from my gasp. Not even three years into this world and she’s already developing her own tastes.
“Not that song, Daddy, I want my songs.”
It’s tolerable for now—we have largely dictated what influences she’s exposed to. But that too is starting to change.
“Where’d she learn the Itsy-Bitsy Spider?”
“Dunno, must’ve been preschool.”
And that’s where it starts.
Today she’s singing Itsy-Bitsy Spider. What’s tomorrow? A serious case of BieberFever? A nasty bout of OneDirectionInfection?
As parents we want to coddle our kids; to protect them from the evils that this world seems so eager to foist upon them. But we have to fight that urge. I want my daughter to be an independent, strong woman like her mother. I want her to carve her own path. I want her to make her own decisions, learn her own lessons and live her own life.
I just don’t want that life to have a crappy soundtrack. Is that really too much to ask?
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