Tween music

Our almost-ten-year old is changing. One of the obvious manifestations of his growing up is the music he's listening to now. Just a few months ago, he was perfectly content to listen to WCIC on the radio during the day and a horrible CD of me singing lullabies at night. Now he's into hard rock, which I can't stand. His favorite band is called Skillet, and he listens to it all the time and goes around yelling the songs in an angry voice. I ignored it and hoped it would pass. It didn't. So now I'm looking up the lyrics and trying to warm up to the music, with the goal of understanding it and maybe even embracing it eventually, since that's what the kid is into.

I have about two or three memories of my tween years, and one of them involves riding in the car with my dad, listening to the radio. He and my mom always listened to WSWT, and I did too, until I became a tween and switched over to KZ-93. So my dad let me choose the station, and Corey Hart's "Sunglasses at Night" was playing. My dad was listening, trying to understand and embrace. He asked me, "Why is he wearing his sunglasses at night?" and I appreciated him for trying. If we want to understand the younger generation, a good place to start is by figuring out their music.