Feelin' Like A Geezer

Today had to put my foot down with the girls' music.  Now normally, I am pretty lenient on the kind of music that they listen to.  I don't like it, but just because I don't like a particular style of music doesn't mean that no one else can listen to it.  I try to let the girls find their own style.  And believe me, there is some stuff that I hear coming out of thier rooms that just drives me insane.

Well I was in Sarah's room to help her with some math and she had her music playing, rap music (which I don't much care for in the first place), when I heard some of the lyrics.  Quite frankly, it is the kind of stuff that would get a movie an R rating.  And it isn't like it was a one time thing.  The clown was saying it over and over and over.  That was it for me.  I made her get rid of it.  

I thought back to when I was in high school and the kind of music I listened to, and I don't recall any language like that.  I asked Kris and she agreed.  Yeah, the music was loud and obnoxious and hacked off my parents, but the worst thing that the lyrics of the songs talked about were drinking, and partying all night long.  Maybe there would be a song with some innuendo, but that was what it was, innuendo.  It wasn't the explicit descriptions, dropping f-bombs left and right.  

I feel like an old geezer who is yelling at the kids for playing their yeah-yeah records too loud.  In that respect I maybe showing my age.  But in another respect, I just don't see the point.  I remember in HS one of my teachers saying something about the language that is used in some songs.  A real artist has a point to it, to try and convey an idea, or a message.  It is an important part of the overall work.  But to just cuss, and offend for the shock value of it is not art, it is just that, to shock, and nothing more.  That kind of "music" really has no redeeming value. 

Anyway, now Kris and I are going through the music on the girls' ipods, and we are making them get rid of the music we don't approve of.  I would have never thought that I would be "censoring" my children's choice in music, but then again, being a parent in 2014 isn't the same as it was 25 years ago.