And I have to admit, at least from my parent's point of view, it wasn't always the case.
Forty-five years ago my family lived in a side-by-side duplex in a little commuter town in New York. I was about seven, and the oldest of four at that point. (My two brothers didn't make their appearances until we moved to Ohio years later.)
The people who lived in the other side of our house, the Wathertons, had two kids. One was a girl about our age. The other was a teenage boy. I don't know how old he was, probably around 17, but to my adoring eyes he seemed to be about 30.
One night the Wathertons had a party in our shared driveway, and their son's garage band played. I thought they were the height of coolness. They probably stank, but to my ears they were maestros. And no doubt both sets of parents, and all the neighbors, suffered through the sets of music, wishing for the "gig" to end. They sent my sisters and me to bed before the entertainment section of the evening was over, darn-it.
My taste in music, at least from my parent's point of view, didn't improve much over the next 10-15 years.
Thirty-five years ago, a teenager myself now living in Ohio, I played my records as loud as my record player would allow. Kansas. The Partridge Family. The Doobie Brothers. The Who. Shaun Cassidy. The Bee Gees. The Carpenters. The Go Gos. The Cars.
Good music, yeah, but it wasn't exactly to my parent's taste.
Okay, I'd spent my formative years listening to my dad's favorites: Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass. Frank Sinatra. The King Family. And those seasonal favorites, the Firestone Christmas albums, available at a fine gas station near you! So maybe payback was hell for him, too!
And my siblings and I dominated the television set during the day, watching such gems as The Brady Bunch, F Troop, Gilligan's Island, and Hogan's Heroes. I'm sure my parents didn't love these programs. And there was constant squabbling between the six of us over what show to watch.
It was cultural Purgatory for my folks, I'm sure.
Time passed, until, 20 years ago, a young mother myself, I played whatever I wanted, as loud as I wanted, and my kids had to put up with it because I was in control. The Moody Blues; Crosby Stills and Nash; Joni Mitchell; Steve Winwood; Robert Palmer; and others. I also watched whatever I wanted to watch on television -- along, I admit, with a sprinkling of Barney, Sesamee Street, and Nicolodean. Oh, and endless Disney movies, over and over and over . . . and over. Only to be expected.
My cultural life was okay. I was still pretty much in charge.
But this wasn't to last, of course. I was, after all, outnumbered, having had five kids of my own.
The first hint of things to come would have been about 15 years ago, when my younger brother visited, and used my stereo system to blast his music of choice: classical movie soundtracks.
Okay, those are good, but all day, every day? Puh-lease!
Then my kids started to form opinions, and to exercise their wills, and pretty soon, we were listening to Back Street Boys, In Sync, the Cheetah Girls and Selena Gomez. I saw the writing on the wall. I handed over the remote control to my boom box and, like Puff the Magic Dragon, slunk into my cave.
Now, having come full circle, I'm the parent who has to listen to the stuff my kids call art.
Most of today's music I don't mind. I only really object to the screamo stuff that makes me want to grab the singer by the throat and say, "Do you have any idea what you're doing to your voice with that stuff??"
It's the television that drives me insane. It's either blasting some video game, or the kids are watching Japanese anime . . . with subtitles! And the darn subtitles are in yellow, and I can't read them from my chair because my eyes are going. So not only am I irritated by the fact that it's on in the first place, but I can't even tell what the heck is going on because they're speaking in Japanese, and my eyes are still going!
So how to survive this period of my life with my mind -- and artistic taste -- intact?
There are really only three choices: 1. I yell at them to turn the blasted stuff off and earn the title of tyrant, and there is no peace in our house. 2. I leave the living room and hole up in my bedroom alone, pouting and simmering about not being the queen of the universe anymore with complete power over all my subjects, and there's no peace in my mind. 3. I suck it up and occasionally let them control the television, radio or stereo. There may be no peace and quiet, but at least if a poll were taken of the residents of my house, I wouldn't be likely to be voted out as mom.
I guess I can live with that.
Meanwhile, where are my glasses? I want to read these darned subtitles and find out what the heck those Japanese characters are saying!
If you can't beat em, join em, right?
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