Satan’s Tongue
I have a secret. If you saw me walking around Target, little ones in tow, you would probably think I was the last person in the world who harbor any mysteries. You see, I look a lot like your typical SAHM, the kind sometimes discussed with derision on some blogs. You know the type, t-shirt, Capri’s, hilights, surrounded by small children who are usually having a melt-down about something. You probably think after looking at me for a few seconds you know how my brain works, my hopes, and dreams, but I might surprise you a little bit.
My husband is suspicious about my secret, but he doesn’t know for sure, can’t quite put his finger on it. My children know though. Oh yes, I have indulged in my secret vice right in front of their sweet little faces. You see, I love to Rock! LOUD! And my favorite place to partake is driving down the road, car load of kids while we all sing a long.
It’s something I’ve been fighting for years, ever since I went to the firesides as a youth warning us of the dangers and hidden messages buried with in the songs. Oh, I was a believer; in my house we learned from a young age that KISS was an acronym for Knights In Satan’s Service! I remember passing by the water tower at the center of town where some poor soul had spray painted the KISS insignia on it in giant letters. I felt genuine sorrow for that lost person.
I wasn’t one to be drawn in with the heavy, obvious hard rockers, not at first. It was a subtler tool that brought me to the place I am today, fluent in Satan’s Tongue. In my town we called them “New Wave” bands. How was an early adolescent girl ever to resist the likes of Simon Lebon or John Taylor. I was helpless and it was a free-for-all from there!
I still try to fight it, when I had children I knew it would be unwise to start them down the rock n roll path in their infancy. Really, I did try; I bought some Barney tapes and Disney princess CDs that we listened to until I was nearly suicidal. I couldn’t take it for long, the pull of the dark-side was too strong and somehow we “lost” most of the children’s music tapes we owned.
I should have realized that it was too late for my children by then anyway. I should have known when the baby in my womb danced around every time an Offspring song came on, or when the first song my eldest daughter ever sang was Bob Marley’s “Get up, Stand Up”.
I haven’t always wanted to take responsibility for my actions. I had always planned that if my second born daughter came home with a beau named “Catman”, who has leopard spots tattooed all over his body and prosthetic whiskers, and announces that she’s the new front woman for an all-girl punk band I would lay the blame wholly at my husband’s feet. I would fully extend my right index finger, level it at my husband and say, “You were the one in the rock band for all of those years!”
I can’t do that to my husband though, if there is blame to be handed out I must stand up and take my share. I occasionally feel guilty about it but I worry that trying to switch my family from rock n roll to LDS pop might be more detrimental than just surfing those sonic waves straight to hell… together forever.
That’s what you get for marrying a rocker.
Comment by Kim Siever — June 10, 2005 @ 7:50 am
Awesome! I’m also a SAHM who cruises Target with my 3 small kids, my ponytail, capri pants and slip-on comfy shoes. I love to rock out in the car, and so do my kids. The girls like to pretend to play guitar and drums (they call it their “girl band”), and Baby Boy just shakes it in his carseat.
Now I have Ben Folds’ “Rockin’ the Suburbs” in my head.
Comment by Allison — June 10, 2005 @ 7:54 am
Kristen,
This is funny because just yesterday I was listening to the old iPod thinking about how I I’m just going to have to raise my (future) kids on Led Zeppelin, consequences be damned. Nice post.
Comment by Rusty — June 10, 2005 @ 8:51 am
Allison, that is too sweet! Maybe we should have our children meet and form a rock band that will take over the world. They will then have to make sure their little ol’ mamas are taken care of in style, I’m thinkin’ beach house in Maui.
Rusty, I’m actually thinking to myself that all of this exposure to rock will prepare my kids to be good missionaries. You see when they are sitting in an investigator’s home who happens to be listening to Led Zeppelin they can nod their heads Beavis and Butthead style while shouting, “Turn it up dude!”
I think that will help the work more than having them cover their ears and rocking back and forth on the investigator’s couch.
Comment by Kristen J — June 10, 2005 @ 9:08 am
Ahhhh, yes. The dark side. Well worth it, I’d say. Led Zeppelin is difinately on the dail, however I will draw the line at The Lemon Song.
Comment by J. Stapley — June 10, 2005 @ 9:40 am
Call me ignorant, but what is a SAHM?
Comment by Craig Atkinson — June 10, 2005 @ 9:54 am
Kristen,
On my mission, I actually got in a door because I knew that it was Blondie issuing forth in all its glory from within. Great family.
Comment by Justin H — June 10, 2005 @ 9:56 am
Oh Craig,
You must start spending more time at female dominated blogs, us Stay At Home Moms are quite the controversial group if you didn’t already know!
Comment by Kristen J — June 10, 2005 @ 9:59 am
Thanks a lot Kristen. I caught our six-year old lingering on some rockin’ video on VH1 on her way to Nickelodeon recently… Together forever indeed.
Comment by Geoff J — June 10, 2005 @ 10:21 am
On my foreign mission, we had an investigator invite us over to hear REM’s “Losing my Religion” because he thought it was a religious song. Which it kinda is…
Comment by John C. — June 10, 2005 @ 10:22 am
I have to admit that as a missionary I started Jonesin’ for Rock so badly that I would choose my grocery store on P-day largely based on the music they played over the sound system… (Piggly Wiggly was pretty good for music in most areas…)
Comment by Geoff J — June 10, 2005 @ 10:25 am
I’ll stick with exposing my children to Pimp My Ride.
Comment by Kim Siever — June 10, 2005 @ 3:29 pm
My only rule is, I don’t listen to it if I don’t want to explain it to them–ever.
Comment by Steve H — June 11, 2005 @ 12:38 am
As soon as our daughter was born we exposed her to our favorite kind of music-rock. Then to my horror I read something when she was 6 weeks old that said I was now able to play soft classical music for her due to her sensitive ears. What had I done?!? Had I already corrupted my daughter at such a young age? Now we got a rockin’ kid who loves to dance to The Killers, New Found Glory and Good Charlotte. I think we did something right.
Comment by Jamie Johnston — June 11, 2005 @ 8:08 am
And to think I was your bishop for all those years and I never knew. I am wondering, did we have you teach primary? Your choice in music doesn’t concern me all that much since I have heard that Bob Marley had the discussions once and his uncle was a bishop.
Comment by Allen Haynie — June 13, 2005 @ 10:13 am
Hah! No, I think I spent the majority of my time working with the young women!
I wonder if the missionaries that gave Bob Marley the discussions were the same ones that gave U2 the discussions and baptised Lionel Richie!
Comment by Kristen J — June 13, 2005 @ 10:40 am
Since you were the drummer in the ward rock band all those years Allen, I don’t think your words of caution about the evils of rock music would have been taken very seriously…
BTW — welcome. I tell old friends about my blog all the time but you may be the first to actually visit!
Comment by Geoff J — June 13, 2005 @ 10:58 am
Bob Marley had the discussions once? When? The church wasn’t established in the Caribbean until 1978, and Marley died in 1976. Since Marley’s heritage is multicultural (mostly-white father and black mother) he also wouldn’t have been actively preached to anyway, as in the mid-1970s they didn’t seek out Blacks to proselyte. Sheesh.
Comment by Oh please — June 13, 2005 @ 11:20 am
Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. I hope you are joking, Oh please, because we are.
And BTW — didn’t you hear that David Bowie was also taking the discussions?
Comment by Geoff J — June 13, 2005 @ 11:29 am
Next somebody will say that Britany Spears is talking to the missionaries. Now there’s a situation, where as a mission president, I’d have to pull the Elders and send in the Sisters. : )
Comment by Speaking Up — June 13, 2005 @ 11:37 am
Wow, it’s like we’re living paralell lives.
My son’s first concert was Jane’s Addiction, when he was about a year old (unless you count the Bad Brains, when he was in utero). My daughter’s first concert was the first Lollapalooza tour, when she was a few weeks old.
My kids are now 15, 13 and 11, and one or all of them have seen: Weird Al, Gorillaz, Fu Manchu, Ted Leo, Brad, Three Inches of Blood, Bottom, and Mondo Generator.
I’m probably going to take them all to see Ben Folds in August. Depending on ticket prices.
Rock on!
Comment by Susan M — June 13, 2005 @ 6:00 pm