(Originally published March 16, 2011 at playgroupwithsylviaplath.com)

When my husband and I got engaged, the subject of banking and checking accounts came up.  My happily married in-laws each gave us a piece of advice.

My father-in-law said, “Absolutely have one account. It’s just so much easier that way.”

My mother-in-law said, “Absolutely have separate accounts. It’s just so much easier that way.”

The exchange went from comic to conviction when my own parents said exactly the same thing.

Like most in the honeymoon phase, I was sure I had won the husband-lottery.  The fact that we ended up with two bank accounts — “ours” and “mine” just confirmed it. I even kept my own Visa card that I had paid off monthly since I was 16 (and henceforth paid using the “ours” account.) For a time, I handled our banking, paid bills, and have some vague recollection that I even completed our taxes one year.

Watching my account accrue just compounded my pride in being a working, wage-earning woman in America. It was everything I had been raised and educated to believe was my right and duty. The “mine” account paid for dinners out with friends, our vacations and even a master’s degree.

But, Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, and Rosie the Riveter needn’t have felt their feminist poster-woman status threatened. In just a few years time, we were fortunate enough to have three children and one career that funded the household. Somewhere in a fog of baby wipes and inertia, it just happened.  The “mine” account dwindled to almost nothing, while the pile of stroller accessories and Dr. Seuss books continued to grow.

Initially, it didn’t bother me.  Money has rarely been an issue in our relationship, and for that I know I am fortunate, but I will not call myself “lucky”.  I subscribe to the idiom, “as you make your bed, so must you lie in it” – especially when it’s a double bed. Sure, my marriage and our default roles as breadwinner and wife may be traditional.  But we both know that if I didn’t buy the pants, he wouldn’t have them to wear.

Most often, “our” money pays for something for “our” children – shoes, piano lessons, little league fees, or a new pair of ice-hockey goalie pads that rivals the price of my first car. If it isn’t for “our” children, it is likely for “our” house – new windows, an oil contract or the plumber.  And trust me, I have no feminist-angst over contributing to the family’s plumbing budget.

But, there is angst over a “mine” expense when there is no “mine” money. Conscious or not, there’s a momentary pause when I pay for something that is solely for me. Sometimes it can be as small as the new hardback book I want because I don’t want to wait for at the library.  Or it can be as major as the new 27” desktop computer I want because I want it.

Our media does a banner job of promoting a culture of “you earned it, you deserve it.”  But is the unspoken corollary, “if you didn’t earn it, you don’t deserve it?”  As a former “earner”, I struggle with this.  Because when you aren’t cashing a paycheck with numbers and a few zeros on it, it can be pretty easy to focus on just the zeros.

And I’m not the only one. Many women – whether wage earners or not – find ways to make peace with the issues of money and relationships: One acquaintance (a doctor) pays for her clothes half in cash and half in credit to avoid debates with her husband. Another writes checks out exclusively to “cash” to muddy the trail. A third takes out $100 cash on the debit card with every visit to the grocery store. My favorite is the friend who buys something for her husband every time she buys an item for herself, so that the charges are “commingled.”

Sure, the devices may be new, but these conventions have been part of domestic relationships for centuries.  Back in the 1500s, King Henry VIII’s fifth wife Catherine brought the fashion of decorative pins with her from France. Within no time, husbands across the Empire were handing over cash to their wives so they could buy the expensive pins without asking for money each time. Thus the behavior of don’t ask, don’t tell was learned.  And the term “pin money” was coined.

Frankly, a shiny cloisonné pin does nothing for me. I can even buy clothes and go to lunch with friends guilt-free.  But, every time I make an appointment to have my hair done, I pause. It is the one item for which I long for a “mine” account.  Sure, a girl can get a cut and blow dry at a strip mall Supercuts for $36. But if a girl wants to have any sort of, we’ll call them, “enhancements” along with that cut to feel like she’s come a long way, baby, well, baby’s going to have to pay for those.  As my mother-in-law warned, a “mine” account would just make it so much easier.

A Philadelphia real estate magnate recognized the need for such comely currency when he created the Henry G. Freeman Jr. Pin Money Fund in 1912.  The lucky lady recipients of his no strings attached $12,000 annual purse? The First Ladies of the land. Barbara Bush used her pin money to support a favorite charitable cause and “to do something nice for the grandchildren.”

There’s been no announcement as to what Michelle Obama will be using her pin money for. Sure, there’s the J. Crew card she could pay off and the organic fertilizer she needs for the garden.  But I would suggest setting just a little bit aside for a keratin treatment or a blowout now and then.

(This piece originally appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Women’s History Month Special Issue – March 16, 2011)

(Originally published February 23, 2011 at playgroupwithsylviaplath.com)

When my son was in kindergarten, he had to fill out an “expert” list so that he would never be short of something to write about when it came time for “writers’ workshop.”  His six-year-old scrawl went like this: “I am an expert on The Magnificent Seven, bullfights, Stagecoach, John Wayne and snow leopards.”

Obviously, there is no lack of testosterone in my house.

The first time my three boys watched The Magnificent Seven, my youngest asked if he could watch it again even before the credits rolled through Charles Bronson, Yul Brynner, James Coburn, Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughan and Eli Wallach.

Days later he was still mesmerized by those heroes on horseback.  He wandered into the kitchen and asked, “Do you think if I wrote Chris, he’d write me back?” Confused at first, I finally figured out that he was talking about Yul Brynner’s character, the leader of The Magnificent Seven — or as the aficionados know, the leader of the Seven Samurai.  I explained that as real as Chris may be to him, Yul Brynner died in the 1980s, so no, he was no longer pen pal material.

In the years since, my son has added High Noon, True Grit, Once Upon A Time In The West, and one of The Duke’s later pictures, The Cowboys, to his cinematic saddlebag of westerns. He has no patience for the more complicated pop-western Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.  And we’re holding back on the Coen brothers’ first contribution to the genre, No Country For Old Men.  At least for a few years.

Even though he has advanced to full third grade maturity, my son still returns to his first love.  Last week, he came home from school mid-morning with a fever and stomachache.  He got into his pirate pajamas and asked if he could have some crackers, lie on the couch and watch The Magnificent Seven.  Perhaps not what the doctor ordered, but it was just what a nine year old needed.

Westerns – as a genre – are built for nine-year-old boys.  And ninety-year-old boys. They are considered to be one of the few wholly original American art forms.  They tell simple but grand stories of the frontier, making order out of chaos, good versus evil, and that intangible yet definitive goal of justice.

The films are set in worlds with very clear order, the story lines are obvious and clean, and the characters fit traditional and predictable archetypes. They are tales of courage, determination and loyalty. The women can be damsels in distress or brothel betties, but all deserve protection. The good guy wears a white hat and the bad guy black.

Yes, they can be that simple.  And at the same time, The Magnificent Seven and so many westerns, can be as complex as you would ever need them to be to teach a boy about being a man. They offer action, enduring dialogue, dramatic storytelling, character development, and morality. Mythic America meets Shakespeare.

Sure, the greatest injustice my son sees in his world is someone budging in line to go out for recess.  But Westerns have a rare ability to meet a viewer where he lives, and then to expand as he matures. Filling me in mid-movie one time, my son explained why the less-than-virtuous woman was being shunned by all but John Wayne, “See mom, the others don’t know yet if they like girls, but Ringo does.”

When my boys watch Westerns, it is a whole body experience. They stand. They sit. They jump up and down on the couch, cheering the hero during fight scenes or when the good guys take chase on horseback. Even down with a fever, my son sat right up when the seven horsemen had gathered and began their search for the bandit Calvera and his men.

“Oh, this is my favorite part,” he said. “From here to the end of the movie.” There was an hour and twenty-seven minutes remaining.

This year, the Academy of Motion Pictures is awarding The Magnificent Seven’s “bad guy” Eli Wallach with an Honorary Oscar to recognize “a lifetime’s worth of indelible screen characters.” Sure, Wallach has been in more than 90 movies – including one of The Godfather franchise, Mystic River and last year’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.  But he is best remembered and most loved for his Western roles.

“I’m going to write him a letter,” said my nine-year-old, as soon as he heard the news of the award. Never mind that Wallach played the hard-hearted bandit stealing from farmers. My son still desperately wanted to have some personal connection to that world of heroes and fighting for justice.  Okay, maybe it has something to do with the guns and horses too.

Sure enough, just like a gunslinger’s promise that he’d be back, one week later a letter arrived in the mail for a 9-year-old boy from a 95-year-old Eli Wallach.

“Respectfully yours, from an old Mexican bandit.”

And that’s how lessons of kindness, integrity, and reverence are passed on, from one hero to the next. And then, of course, he mounts his horse and rides off into the sunset.

(Originally published January 18, 2011 at playgroupwithsylviaplath.com)

Rarely – if EVER – does an article on parenting styles make national headlines.

Sure, there was the call to arms to stop shaken-baby-syndrome. Then we had Octomom and Kate Gosselin to make everyone feel better about their own childrearing choices.  And the election brought plenty of fodder on the parenting front with the complicated lives of Sarah Palin and Michelle Obama.

Now let us welcome Amy Chua to the Parenting Hall of Fame in modern America.

For those of you not yet familiar with this latest media firestorm, Ms. Chua will be known as the woman who took the term “Chinese mother” from referring simply to ethnic heritage to an entire school of thought on discipline and parenting. Or as a friend calls her, “that woman who beats her children into superiority.”

Battle Hymn of The Tiger Mother, the memoir of her experience as a “Chinese mother” was just released and was excerpted in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal.  One week later, the piece is still the most read and most emailed item in the paper.  It has elicited nearly 7,000 comments from readers – more than any other piece in the history of WSJ.com.

It’s easy to see why.  Everyone has either been parented or is parenting.  And everyone has an opinion on the topic. And headlines like “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” are meant to fuel our subconscious fears for our country and our children. (Which explains why the book is being marketed in China under the title American Mother.)

Because parenting is a personal and private endeavor, there are no annual reviews, bonuses or grades.  So, we’re often left with comparing ourselves to the efforts, outcomes, strengths and weaknesses of other parents.

Two years ago, I was waiting in the airport security line with my kids when the mother in front of us turned to her teenage daughter and said through gritted teeth, “I can’t wait until we get home because I am going to kick your ass.”

My boys turned to me with wide eyes and red faces.  I’ve never totally understood the phrase “discretion is the better part of valor,” but I was pretty sure that standing in my stocking feet holding my clogs was it.

But, invoking the old, “remember that mom in the airport?” was starting to lose its effectiveness over my boys.  I was in need of a new crutch.  And along came the Tiger Mother.

In her excerpt she extols the extremes of her parenting.  Any grade lower than an “A” is unacceptable (excluding gym and drama, which, let’s face it, there’s meaning in that exclusion).  Her daughters practice the piano or violin two to three hours everyday, including weekends, summers and vacations.  Also, there’s no television, no computer games, no play-dates and no sleepovers.

Now, I hate sleepovers as much as the next mom (just ask my boys), but sometimes the mini-hockey champion of the world tournament does not end by nightfall and simply must continue through pancakes the next morning. And, I’m sure many would agree, some of the most enduring wisdom from a sleepover is the 11 pm call, “Come get me.”

I read some of the juiciest bits of Ms. Chua’s piece to my family over dinner – conveniently just before the evening’s round of piano practice was to begin.  Which we can now refer to as “piano practice for pikers.”

Ms. Chua’s tells of coercion at the piano with threats of no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents and no birthday parties for years to come.  There’s kicking and thrashing thrown in and sheet music is ripped to shreds. She tells her then 7-year-old to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.  She calls her older daughter “garbage”, and she refuses a handmade birthday card from her youngest because  “I expect better.”

Certainly, extremes raise discussion and controversy and perhaps boost book sales. And I mean to take nothing away from Ms. Chua’s love for and pride in her children, nor the accomplishments of the young women.  But as another friend said, “It all sounds very exhausting. Who wants to listen to your child play violin for three hours a day? I can barely sit through a Holiday concert.”

The examples Ms. Chua uses and the tone with which she writes unfortunately take away from the interesting points she raises. First, she sets up her argument as Chinese or “immigrant” parenting versus “Western” parenting.  Although not explicitly stated, it is abundantly clear that, in her mind, one is right and the other is wrong.

This is unnecessary, dangerous, and patronizing. She makes a strong case for “Chinese” parenting to attain certain goals — quantifiable academic achievement and musical accomplishment. By her calculations these will lead to the ultimate goal, success.  But a crucial, and perhaps very “Western” element is missing. An intangible we call “happiness”.

Now I’m not espousing a regimen of “all play and no work make Jack an American boy.” I’m just raising the lesson that Americans have learned from a few cycles of prosperity.  Success and happiness are not the same thing.  Certainly, we hope that they are not mutually exclusive.  But American parents expend real time and emotional energy trying to teach their kids the value of finding pleasure and pride – as well as a paycheck – in the work that you do.

Ms. Chua makes no allowance for such fragile aspirations in her parenting or that of others. On the contrary, every reference she makes to “Western” parenting drips with condescension and disdain. Granted, much of what she says may actually be true, but the biggest lesson I have learned as a parent is that of humility.

There is nothing more important to people than how they raise their children.  And frequently how they struggle to do so. How one parents is inextricably a reflection of beliefs and culture. Ms. Chua offers some explanation for her unyielding approach: “Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything: Chinese children must spend their lives repaying their parents by obeying them and making them proud.”

Her husband explains the Western stance. (Said husband, by the way, has been voted one of the country’s “hottest” law school deans. Don’t know how The Wall Street Journal could’ve left that out.) “It’s parents who foist life on their kids, so it’s the parents’ responsibility to provide for them. Kids don’t owe their parents anything. Their duty will be to their own kids.”

Chua’s reaction? “This strikes me as a terrible deal for the Western parent.”

Agreed, but the notion of raising my children to believe that they “owe me” is even more unseemly.

Apparently it runs strong in the Chua family. Ms. Chua writes of coming in second place in a history competition as a child. After the awards ceremony, her father said to her, “Never, ever disgrace me like that again.”

She credits Chinese parents with recognizing “that nothing is fun until you’re good at it.” She notes that many American parents allow a child to give up when something becomes difficult, whereas a Chinese parent will not.  She reasons that rote repetition and more practice will lead to success, which leads to praise, admiration, satisfaction and confidence.

I’m rolling along and agreeing with her on this point. Rooting for the kid, rooting for the parent, loving the struggle that leads to the joy of mastering something, and then she blows it.  And reminds us that she is a “Chinese mother” and not a “Western” parent.  “This in turn makes it easier for the parent to get the child to work even more,” she says.

The debate over parenting styles was certainly on my mind when I read another piece this week called Social Animal: How the new sciences of human nature can help make sense of a life.  (Obviously, I cannot be burdened with too many play-dates, sleepovers and three-hour piano practices when I have so many non-essential articles, books, and reality television shows to ponder.)

In his New Yorker piece, David Brooks synthesizes some of the latest studies on reason, intuition, connecting and happiness. He couches these complex scientific theories and results in a fictional tale, because to “Western” readers, story, characters, people and relationships are powerful things.

“The building blocks of his happiness had little to do with the lines on his resume,” the fictional Harold observes.  “What the inner mind really wants is connection.” Brooks backs that up with science, citing research that found “joining a group that meets just once a month produces the same increase in happiness as doubling your income.”

No surprise, findings show that the endeavors that contribute most to happiness are those we do together — “having sex, socializing after work and having dinner with friends.” In Brooks’ piece, Harold realizes that “the things that didn’t lead to happiness and flourishing had been emphasized at the expense of the things that did.”

It was actually my boys who made the connection between Ms. Chua and a favorite movie, Akeelah and the Bee. When the contest is down to just two spellers, Akeelah Anderson and Dylan Chiu, they take a water break.

In the men’s room, the Chinese American father says to his son, “If you lose to that girl, you’re second place your whole life. No way, you hear me? No way.”

In the ladies’ room, Akeelah looks in the mirror and says to herself and her deceased father, “Pretty good, huh?”

We just might need to watch that one again this weekend.  Right after we finish Minuet in G.

(Originally published December 14, 2010 at playgroupwithsylviaplath.com)

When I started this blog, I promised myself (and my four readers) that I would not write any posts about my laundry, what to make for dinner, or how long the lines are at Target. (Because, really, isn’t that what Facebook is for?)  I’m not interested in hearing about someone else’s domestic minutiae or the logistics of the care and feeding of their children.  So why would anyone be interested in mine?

But sometimes, as a parent, and particularly as a parent in December, September and May-June, all you’re left with is care and feeding and domestic minutiae.

The saga of my Fall started with the diluvial rains we experienced the last night of September and has ended with me getting a Christmas present I never knew I wanted.

Like any good domestic adventure, this one began with a drip – right over Thing Three’s head while he was practicing the piano. A quick sprint to the bathroom above proved that no, the pipes were not leaking, but indeed the second floor ceiling was.  A trip to the third floor attic showed a knee-wall paint job rippled with water waiting to escape.

Expecting that I might not be the only one with water issues, I called my contractor to reserve my spot in line for the morning.  (And, you know he’s a keeper when given the modern marvel of caller-ID, he still picks up.)

Somewhere in the 7-inches of rain and attendant winds during the night, we lost power.  But, Slim’s keep-the-dream-alive aging athlete’s body still woke at 5:15 for men’s ice hockey. His dreams of greatness were short-lived, when he discovered the source of our troubles.  A large tree had been uprooted and had come to rest across our dead-end street, blocking all possibility of exit.

Still, in those magic moments before sunrise loved by men’s hockey die-hards, Slim put his bag away in the basement and stepped into 8 inches of water.

Daylight brought more excitement.  Dylan Thomas need not have worried, the tree did not go gently into that good night.  It brought down the power lines, the transformer box and the entire utility pole to a grassy resting spot next to my driveway.

My boys (big and small) got to use a chainsaw to cut back enough of the tree to get out of our driveway.  A neighbor let us drive across his lawn to leave the street, and the saintly contractor sent over a pump and a generator to empty the basement.

Even the roofer showed up to give me his diagnosis.  He was happy to be avoiding his own domestic flood plane – where he was supposed to be hosting his brother-in-law’s wedding on his lawn the next day.  (Let’s recall those 7 inches of rain.)   As my feet sank into my backyard, I felt like I might be the lucky one.

“You see that roofline up there?” the roofer says, as he points to my third-floor attic. “You ever been up there?”

I’m uncertain whether to be flattered or insulted that he thinks that my 5-foot, suburban mother self, might be found on a three-story rooftop.  He explains that that’s where the water is getting in, and he’ll happily tarp it for me until it can be repaired.

So, by day’s end, we had a downed power pole on the lawn, a tarped roof, and the contents of our basement drying in the yard. Including 47 linear feet of Astroturf (Thing Two’s beloved birthday gift.)  Can you hear the Sanford & Son theme song? (By Quincy Jones, by the way.)

After two days of cold showers and “family time” around candles and flashlights, the utility company arrived.  They cleared the tree, untangled wires and freed the downed pole.  I was optimistic that our power would be restored imminently if not immediately.

“Uh, ma’am. I have bad news,” the crew’s foreman says. “That’s a private utility pole.”

Sure private property, no-trespassing, I get that.  But a private utility pole?

“Yes, ma’am you apparently own this pole, so we’re not going to be able to connect your power until you get a new pole installed.”  In disbelief, I ask this fine employee of the utility company, who, if not the utility company, might someone contact to install a private pole?

“Oh, ma’am I have no idea.”

On the third day, another crew from the utility company arrives with their bucket trucks, saws, and service equipment.  A new foreman – Slanker (seriously, that’s his name) – assures me that, indeed, I am the owner of my own (downed) utility pole.

I take solace vacuuming the remaining water from my basement using the generator that’s been left in my yard.  I expect having a generator is like having a label maker – you find yourself looking for excuses to use it.

Soon, Slim appears and begins shouting what I hope is good news over my janitorial symphony of the wet-dry vac and the generator.  “You know Slanker out there? He used to coach the Bantam team before they switched rinks. He’s got some names for a new pole.”

Of course.  All hopes of getting my power restored could rest in the hands of youth sports.  So my new friend, Coach Slanker, gives me his power pole connections, and then says, “I could probably jury-rig something to get power to your house.”

Under normal circumstances, you do not want the terms “jury-rig” “power” and “your house” to be used in the same sentence. But I own my own utility pole.  These are not normal circumstances.

By nightfall, Slanker’s team had engineered a contraption of pulleys, cinches and ropes tied to various trees to hold up the rotted pole. We had lights, heat and were even ready to relay the Astroturf in the basement.  Thing Three was repositioning the regulation hockey net when a brown slime oozed from the metal frame.

“Ooh, jeez, I hope that doesn’t stain the Astroturf,” he said.  Truer words my friend, truer words.

Before we move on, I’d like you to consider the things in your own home that were originally meant as “temporary” but through inertia became “semi-permanent.” Like that case of toilet paper that served as a coffee table for months in a New York apartment. “Just throw that weed-beast fabric wall-hanging from college over it and no one will know,” one of you might have said.

Well, at my house, the blue tarp on the roof and the utility pole held up with ropes crisscrossing the yard became part of the scenery while we waited for bids, permits and scheduling.

Things finally came to a head on a recent sunny afternoon.  I returned from the grocery store to discover that Slim had our 13-year-old driving my SUV to haul tarps of raked leaves from the backyard to the front.

My husband beamed with pride as he called out to his first-born son, “and be careful driving around the low ropes holding up the utility pole.”  (I realize that this scene gives some credence to the notion that I might be found on my rooftop.)

It was time to take action.

On the day of installation all the stars seemed to be aligned.  The crew arrived with a new pole just as the roofers were leaving with their ladders. And then the doorbell rang.

There in his regulation orange vest was Steve from the township. Here to confirm that I was indeed installing my own private utility pole.

“I have some bad news ma’am.  I backed in to your mailbox with my truck.  We’re going to have to replace that.”

I’m sure that Steve from the township has no idea how close he came to making a grown woman cry over a standard-issue mailbox post.

Wishing you a little less excitement this December.  But, if you find yourself needing a utility pole, I know a guy who knows a guy.

(I’m pretty sure he’s attaching a bright red holiday bow here.)

(Originally published November 18, 2010 at playgroupwithsylviaplath.com)

I have always loved listening to music.  I listen to old music, new music, pop music, show tunes, rap, Latin, classical, and the much-maligned adult contemporary. I love to hear what’s new and I want to know what other people are listening to.

Of course, I made mix-tapes in high school and college, and I’ll even be so bold as to say I still make a pretty mean mix-CD today. When you hear songs on the radio, that’s music and a message others are selling to you. But when you take the time to handpick songs, then that mix, conscious or not, says something about the way you see the world and yourself. A music mix is like emotional carbon dating.

So, imagine my thrill when for my birthday last month my thirteen-year-old made me a mix-CD.  Okay, so he was a few days late and he cut the song list too small so it keeps sliding out the case.  But he listened to and thought about music. He arranged 15 songs in a particular order.  And he gave it to me.

Perhaps jealous they hadn’t thought of it themselves, my younger two were quick to dismiss his song choices for their suburban mother.  They paid no mind to the Ike and Tina Turner or UB40 selections but moved right on to today’s chart toppers.

“Seriously, Ke$ha?” one said.

“You put Eminem on a CD for mom?” asked the other.

“What’s wrong, you don’t think I like Eminem?” I asked him.

“It’s just a little inappropriate for you,” my nine-year-old told me.

While I appreciated the concern for my vulnerable ears and the moral high ground emanating from the backseat, I’d frankly heard it all before.

It was actually 25 years ago this month, when the music industry bowed to pressure from Tipper Gore, other political wives and the National Parent Teacher Association and began labeling music that contained explicit material. The “Tipper Sticker,” which evolved into the Parental Advisory label was born.

The debate raged that fall – over album covers, videos, backmasking, and explicit song lyrics – particularly those of “The Filthy Fifteen” – songs from Prince, Sheena Easton (?), AC/DC, Madonna, Def Leppard and Cyndi Lauper.  The hearings in the capital brought out Frank Zappa, John Denver and Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider.  (Such star power wouldn’t be seen again in the chambers until Stephen Colbert told Congress this fall that farm work “is really hard.”)

People took sides on the Senate floor, in the recording studios, and in my childhood home. Even though my sister already owned the requisite leg warmers, headband and satin shorts, my mother would not let her buy Olivia Newtown-John’s album, Let’s Get Physical.  And my father was not a fan of us singing along with The J. Geils Band to (Angel Is A) Centerfold as he drove us to our parochial school.

But sing along and listen away we did. With our radios, our friends, our records, our cassette tapes and our Sony Walkmans. We wanted our MTV and we got it.

Watching the popular 1984 music video We’re Not Gonna Take It is still entertaining and now comically nostalgic. The dad screams, “What do you want to do with your life?” And the buttoned-up pre-teen with Yale and Stanford pennants on his wall says, “I want to ROCK” before morphing into Dee Snider, hair icon of the decade (which is, actually, really saying something).

So, 25 years later, Dee Snider spends time raising money and awareness for the March of Dimes through Bikers for Babies. And I have not-so babies in the backseat singing along to Usher, Kid Cudi, Katy Perry, Lily Allen and Jay-Z. Some of it’s good; some of it’s awful. Some would be laughably explicit, if they weren’t also crude.  And my kids love it all.

We talk a lot together about the music and the artists. We play “name that tune.” We decipher some of the lyrics and we leave others alone. They own a few CDs with the parental advisory label, and they download some “explicit” songs from iTunes.

But every time, material is marked “explicit” or has an advisory label, it forces me to investigate, ask why, and make the decision myself.  Perhaps just as it was intended those many years ago, the label raises a flag and actually calls on me to make a decision as the parent.

I know that my kids listen to more without me, and that’s okay. I don’t believe that pop or rap will cause them to wake up in Vegas and “shake the glitter” from their clothes or think that domestic abuse is okay.  No more than I bought into Madonna telling me “the boy with the cold hard cash is always Mister Right.”

Yes, a remarkable amount of today’s music contains depictions of violence and sex. I say “no” to some and “yes” to others.  I change the station a lot.  Music has always been a generational defining line. I tell them they need a little Van Morrison and the Clash.  And they tell me what I need.

“Mom, you would love this song because it’s about The Flinstones,” my youngest eagerly told me one day. Sure it is.  Because the refrain goes like this, “call me Mr. Flinstone, cause I can make your bed rock.”  Wilma would’ve loved that one.

This week, I was the guilty party peddling inappropriateness when I brought up rock legend Meat Loaf in conversation and my children replied with disgust, “What is that?”  I decided the situation needed to be remedied immediately.

And let me assure you.  No matter how great you remember Paradise By The Dashboard Light sounding in the women’s ice hockey locker room during college, it is a decidedly different experience while driving your three young children to school at 7:45 in the morning.

Meat Loaf sings, “Ain’t no doubt about it, we were doubly blessed – cause we were barely seventeen and we were barely dressed.”  I ended our mutual discomfort, when my oldest said, “This is terrible! What is the deal with the baseball announcer?”

No matter the alarm, fear and anger raised by Tipper Gore and her Parents Music Resource Center 25 years ago, the changes they brought are probably just about right.

No music was or is censored. Artists still create what they want and businesses still sell it.  And the parental advisory label does just what it should. It announces to consumers, corporations, artists, children, and to parents themselves, that the ultimate authority in the life of a child is the parents.

While he actually spoke in support of the record companies in 1985, John Denver’s Senate testimony speaks to me today:

“The problem has to do with our willingness as parents, to take responsibility for the upbringing of our children. To pay attention to their interests, to respond to their needs and to recognize that we, as parents and as individuals, have a greater influence on our children and on each other than anything else could possibly have.”

Now I’m just waiting for Weezer’s latest single to start climbing the charts.  The refrain goes, “Smart girls, never get enough of those smart girls, smart girls.”