I went to a private Fundamentalist Evangelical Protestant Christian school, where most popular music was frowned on, as well as all dancing. Apparantly it would give us bad ideas and bad urges. Hogwash!
Going through 12 years of that heavy handed censorship caused nothing more than my friends and myself to see that music is nothing more than music. Background noise. It's not a plan for how to live your life or how to spend your night. Dancing is nothing more than moving to the music and not an invitation to sex.
I don't like a lot of the new music but I like some of it. I pretty much loathe the new dance music, but oddly enough I like Gangsta Rap. For real, I do. I didn't at first but my oldest son (23 now) would listen to it and I started sort of liking it. I burned some CD's for myself to listen to in the car.
I mainly like classic rock, new age, a HUGE Loreena McKinnett fan (I have everything she's done), classical, early 60's "mambo" type music, show tunes, crooners, 90's alternative, and some bluegrass instrumentals. But I also like gangsta rap. I don't know why. I just do. I've never "shot a n**** in the face with my tek 9" after I "made him gimme the dope out the safe" then told the cops to "bring ya helicopters and ya f***** german shepherds" nor have I ever had the urge to, but I like that song (yes, it's an old one but I like the newer ones too).
It's just music. My kids listen to whatever they like, and if there are some questionable type lyrics that we actually understand pronounced when listening to, someone usually makes a comment like "I bet THAT worked out great for him, huh?" in a sarcastic manner. In other words, we know we are listening to people sing about stupid choices they made.
The song "Slow Motion" by Third Eye Blind is all about some serious bad choices. The whole song goes into how the guys little sister eats paint chips and has brain damage from it, how his neighbor beats his wife, how he shot his English teachers son for oweing him money, how he shoots up heroin, how he has sex with a girl then snorts cocaine he's cut with Drano. Then in the final line, the singer says that he just sings all that stuff because they pay him and he needs the money and basically poses the question to people who actually do that kind of thing "Whats your excuse? The jokes on you!"
Thats it in a nutshell. It's just music. They are just singing about stuff. At the moment, bad choices in life is what entertains folks. When you were young did you ever watch "Less Than Zero?" I did. All about bad choices. Lots of movies were. "Rivers Edge", we watched that too, didn't we? It didn't turn any of us into those kind of people (if you don't count Robert Downey Jr)
When it comes to dancing, I like to dance. I like to know the new dances. I'm 48 and a grandma, but I can do the "Apple Bottom Jeans" dance. It's a LOT harder than it looks. Trust me, nobody is thinking about sex while doing that. Or while "dropping it" on the dance floor. You are thinking about where your feet are and maintaining you balance and wondering which way your partner is going to go next, so you can be in the right spot. You may be breathless afterwards, but it's not from lust and desire, it's from exertion.
Tank tops are worn all over the place here in Southwest Alabama from Spring till Fall. Spaghetti strap ones. My girls get the ones with the bra things in them. I have a few that I wear myself.
I've always let my kids wear whatever they wanted to unless it was tacky, and in that case I told them it was tacky and they couldn't wear it because it was tacky. Looking like a hooker falls under tacky. My girls are 16 and 19. When they were 11 and 12 they mainly wanted to just wear jeans and tshirts because thats what every other girl wore. One of mine is a perky cheerleader "fashion conscious" (the older one) and the younger one is a happy goth type. She's a metal goth though, and not the Victorian goth or even Steampunk goth that I would have preferred, but it's up to her what her style is.
So, thats my view on this.
