Dirty pictures.

Zachary's taste in music is NOT the same as mine.

I've tried to teach him the ways of Willie and Conway, Loretta and Dolly, Garth Brooks and Keith Whitley, and he usually listens politely for a minute or two before saying, "But don't you have anything, you know, with some BOOM BOOM in it?"

Why are people always hating on my music? 

Anyway, over the last couple of years, R and I have both downloaded music for Zachary from time to time, and sometime last year he became completely obsessed with a song called "Dynamite" by an artist named Taio Cruz.  

Both the song and the artist were a complete mystery to me, so I enlisted R's help, and he downloaded the entire album for Zachary.  Zack played the song at full volume over and over and over for months.  He finally (thankfully!) got tired of it, and I completely forgot it ever existed.

It remained an unplayed album on an entire playlist of albums until just the other day, when it came to my attention that he was signing along with a really catchy tune called "Take a Dirty Picture For Me."

So here's my kid, just hanging out, playing Pokemon cards, singing dirty songs. 

WHA?!?!?!

WHO GAVE MY KID THIS MUSIC?!?!?!

THIS IS TERRIBLE!!!  UNACCEPTABLE!!!! WHENEVER I FIND OUT WHERE THIS DIRTY SONG CAME FROM HEADS WILL ROLL!!!  I WILL HAVE BLOOD FOR THIS I WILL... oh wait.  I did it.  It's totally my fault.

Well then.

After I realized it was a song on the album I had R download for Zachary last year, I calmed down just a bit.  And I vowed to maybe check things out a little better before giving my seven year old unrestricted access to them.

I had a quick (but hopefully meaningful and memorable) conversation with Zachary about how not every song is a song you'd want to sing, say, to a friend at school, determined he just thought it was a catchy tune and he had no clue what it meant, then I let it go.

It's not the worst thing he'll ever hear, I'm sure, because HE LIVES IN THE WORLD, and the world is full junk, not all of which is rainbows and kittens, and I'm glad it gave me a small lead-in to talk to him about some important stuff.

And I will pay closer attention to what he has access to, but truth be told, I'm not going to automatically say no to music with marginal lyrics.  That to me, just like a million other things, is just a teaching moment.  

And I'm the teacher.

Albeit an inattentive one at times.