A couple months ago, I was browsing my 12 year old daughter’s phone, as any parent does and should, and in her music history I found a couple of songs she had listened to by Lizzo. A couple months ago I didn’t know who Lizzo was. A couple months ago I was out of touch. 😉
All I knew was that the song was marked with a big black E for explicit, and that made me nervous and upset, and piqued my curiosity. So the next morning, on my daily solo drive back home from the car rider line, I listened to those same Lizzo songs through my car radio. Yes, there were some bad words, but probably nothing more than she hears at school. It was mostly innocent, and fun, and girl-powerish. In fact, I could now say that I stan for Lizzo (see how hip I am?).
Still – like a responsible parent, I furiously google searched on how to enable all the parental controls on Apple Music to filter out explicit stuff.
And I thought back to when I was 12. Isn’t it funny and crazy and wonderful and WEIRD how life comes full circle sometimes. I remembered the first cassette tape I ever bought – Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill. I bought that tape with my own money and I listened to it on repeat on my walkman the summer after 7th grade. I even remember taking it on a church trip and listening to it on the bus! And if you also remember back to 1995, that cassette tape did feature that big black E for explicit. And there were several curse words sprinkled in those angsty songs that I so loved.
I listened through that album the other day and channeled my 12 year old self. Amazing how a song can take you back to a certain place and time. I thought about how I used to listen to those songs then and how differently I hear the words now. Would I be happy if my own kid bought this cassette tape? (ha!) Things can take on different meaning depending on where you are in your life journey. The song “Perfect” came on and I heard familiar words that I had forgotten,
Sometimes is never quite enough
If you’re flawless, then you’ll win my love
Don’t forget to win first place
Don’t forget to keep that smile on your face
Be a good girl
Try a little harder
You’ve got to measure up
And make me prouder
This means nothing to me now and in fact sounds a little trivial (sorry, Alanis) but – OH! How I felt that as a young girl! I had wonderful parents and a wonderful life. But I remembered trying to navigate junior high school and all those feelings of growing up. It can be so hard at that age. I had forgotten just how hard.
And now as parents, we and our children have the obstacle of technology and social media thrown into their entertainment. So many questions. Who knows what the right thing is. Our kids literally hold the world in the palm of their hands but we are responsible for finding and learning about the tools to control what they do and don’t see and listen to (easier said than done… like, can I block explicit content but still let a few Lizzo and Alanis songs filter through? Let me go Google that… haha!).
I don’t judge how any parent chooses to handle their kids and technology. This is a new landscape and we’re all trying to figure it out. We may not know if we did a good job or not until our preteens have their own preteens and life comes full circle again…
