"The Rap Music"

Let me start by saying that I don't think having a child should change who you are as a person. Our parenting philosophy has always been that we would fit our daughter into our life & not to stop doing things we enjoyed, within reason. Yes, our life has changed & we love that. But we never wanted to be the people who were on such a schedule that they had to race home at 6pm so our daughter could take a nap. No judgement if that is what you do, I'm just keeping it real.

We bring our daughter out to eat with us on a weekly basis since she was about a month old. I believe, for that reason, she is very well-mannered at restaurants (with the exception of an occasional meltdown - in which case we LEAVE & do not subject the entire restaurant to her screaming & crying). I remember one night, we went to our favorite Mexican restaurant when babygirl was 6 months old. We had our daughter in her car seat while we waited for our table. A complete stranger came up to us & was coo-ing and complimenting us on how adorable our little girl was. She then proceeded to say "I'm surprised she's so quiet, THAT won't last"...not only did it bother us because this moron complete stranger felt the need to share her 2 cents with us on the behavior of a child she had never met before but it bothered us that she ASSumed that an activity we loved, that was working for us, was probably not going to be an option for much longer.

Let me just say, we continue to go out for a family night at least once a week. THIS is lasting. BITCH.

Anyway, since becoming a mom, I knew there were things I would have to tone down and/or stop doing completely. I'm okay with that. Some of these items include:

• Partying till the break o' dawn
• Sleeping until noon on the weekends
• Laying on the couch, watching Bravo in my pajamas all day
• Spending money on ridiculously expensive handbags that I didn't need
• Listening to hardcore rap music
• Not cleaning poop off another human being's butt cheeks

Out of all of this, one thing I've had a hard time accepting is that I won't be able to listen to "the rap music". That is what my father & Katie refer to Hip-hop as. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of degrading women and disgusting references to sexual acts but I love me some rap music.

I would say my love affair with rap & the Hip-hop genre began when I was a sophomore in high school. I loved Jay-Z, Tupac, Lauryn Hill, Biggie, almost any rap I could get my hands on. I love the beats, the rhythm, the creative wording, the "flow" & rhyming. I just loved all of it. Eventually, my taste in "the rap music" grew increasingly hard-core (naturally) and I was listening to some pretty disgusting songs. Disgusting in the way they spoke about sexual acts, used really harsh language and called women all kinds of names. But I think I just liked the beats. Looking back, I would never want my child to listen to some of the disgusting crap I listened to. What comes to mind is one of my & my girlfriends favorite songs at the time, "Ass & Titties" by Three Six Mafia. I'm talking Three Six Mafia in 1999, before they won an Oscar, before most people knew who they were. The group that had a song (which I may or may not know all the lyrics to) called "Slob on my Knob". Go to Youtube & play that song right now. It's got a great beat but it's pretty much disgusting. Here I was, a 16 year old, innocent, inexperienced CHILD singing about "Ass & Titties" without a care in the world.

I remember going on a road trip with Katie when I was 16. She was 19 and in college and way more sophisticated than I was. I put on my beloved Three Six Mafia for her and I'm pretty sure she had to pick her jaw up off the car floor when she heard the disgusting crap I was listening to. Who was I? What had I become? Ok...it's not that serious. But I was in over my head. I was a girl from the suburbs listening to men talk about things I had never and would never experience. But I loved the beat, yo!!

Anyway, the point of all of this is that I've toned it down, A LOT. Ass & Titties is on a mix CD somewhere in a box, which I will one day sort through, but it's not a song I would listen to in front of anyone else. But how will I ever quit you, rap music? How will I remove the Jay-Z & Kanye "Watch the Throne" CD that has been on permanent rotation in my car since 2011? Do I have to? I don't want to give it all up but I understand how inappropriate some of it is.

Will there be a new form of media that will out do what I think is shocking in 2013? Will I be 80 years old, listening to "Back That Ass Up?" rapping every lyric in perfect synchronization with Juvenile? But seriously, how funny would that be? Will my grandchildren think I'm a quirky/awesome/hilarious granny or will they laugh at me in a "we feel bad for her, she's sad, crazy and old" kind of way? Did I just reference non-existant grand children?? Holy shit. Where am I?

In closing, I would like to quote one of my favorite lyricists of all time, Jay-Z, just to show you how thought provoking "the rap music" can be:

"The drought will define a man when the well dries up.
You learn the worth of water without work, you thirst til you die, yup."

I mean....genious.