Wait...I'm Who?!

Remember back in your youth you would feel deep connections to your music?  Quoting the lyrics.  Writing meaningful phrases on your notebook. (Or clothes.)  Usually it was lines expressing heartache, anger at the world or at the "establishment".  Eff the man, man!

Recently, one of my children got in trouble with me for some schoolwork neglect and ridiculousness. It was a repeat performance so there was much anger on my part. Ranting, raving and, the cherry on top, banning the offender from electronics for the remainder of the week.  Oh, the humanity!  (In the old days, I wouldn't have been able to play Intellivision.  Now it's the iPod, the computer, video games...). The child accepted the punishment quietly because it was deserved.  The project was finished and life went on.

The next morning while getting ready for school, another child who lives here (names have been changed to protect the identities of those involved), yells down to me, "What does the bathtub say?"  Huh?  [Confusion- the bathtub talks?] After some back and forth, I go investigate.  There are words scrawled on the tub. In bathtub crayon.  (In case you were wondering, the orange one.)  It circles the tub.  Some of the words look rubbed out but I can make out a few   "... own depression- (Metallica)".  Metallica?!?  Someone is trying to quote  Metallica in bathtub crayon!?  Reading further, there is another sentence, "misfortune comes in life with punishment." How dramatic!  Sitting in the tub scrawling angry words AND misquoting Metallica! For just a few minutes, I am alarmed just like my mother would've been.  That level of emotion-yikes!  But then I am a little excited. What an awesome kid.  Using songs and words to express emotions and rally against the powers that be!  Speaking out against injustice!  Against the establishment!  Against the "man"!

[Record coming to a screeching halt] Hold up a second!  Am I the man?!  I HAVE to be the man in this scenario.  Yes. I'm the establishment?  I AM the establishment.  A member of the two-person governing party.  Wow.  I know I am a parent and a grownup but to be "the man".   It's kind of weird.  It's also odd to understand a bit of the anxiety of our parents generation.  Our music sounded so different and angry.  It was hard for them to not be concerned about some of the dark "messages" and we dismissed them with "It's no big deal!"  I had a flash of that feeling as well...  Surreal! I still can't believe I'm the grownup now...

Well, most Saturdays my husband wakes before everyone and putters around listening to music and doing bills. The Saturday after the angry graffiti incident, I came down and he was listening to Rage Against the Machines "Killing in the Name".  Just as I come downstairs the end of the songs peaks with, "F__ You, I won't do what you tell me" repeated over and over.  Arg!  I became "the man" again and announced, "For the love of all that is holy, turn it down before any kids get up!  I don't want to find this written in the bathtub next!"  Idea for a new band name? Rage Against the Mom...  Sigh...