This morning the kids started the day off on the wrong foot. They began arguing at breakfast — not a full knock down, drag out fight but just little sniping here and there. Because they were in sour moods, I decided to put on “angry” music on the networked MP3 player.
Some background before I go any further. My musical tastes vary greatly from oldies 60’s and 70’s music that my parents listened to when I was young (read The Beatles and The Carpenters) to heavy metal during my rebellious teenage years (Scorpions, Michael Schenker, Van Halen) to alternative (the Offspring, Toadies) to instrumental (George Winston). However, day in and day out for the last 13 or 14 years I have been a country music fan. Simple American music that reflects good ol’ American values with lyrics you can actually understand. It’s even better now that I’m a dad and I can listen to the music in front of my kids — which I can’t say for some of the groups I named previously. Anyway, that’s pretty much what we listen to in the car and at home and the kids like it and have gotten used to it.
So I’ll continue the story.
Kids cranky and nipping at each other. I turn on “angry” music from my youth. My wife looked at me very weird when the song “One” from Metallica came on. If you haven’t heard it, the song starts off very softly with a single slow guitar. However, a few minutes into the song, guitars are furiously blaring and drums are machine gunning from the speakers. My son, with a turned up nose, looked at me and said “I don’t like this”. I, in turn, told him that I did not like the way he was fighting with his sister. Within seconds, we agreed that if I turned off the music that he would be nice to his sister.
While I was at first trying to be funny just to my wife, I ended up using Metallica as a discipline tool for my kids. Pretty damn funny if you ask me. And they’ll probably never listen or get into that kind of music as they grow up to boot.
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
