Parenting: What I Learned From Lil Wayne

Reader Contribution by Cindy Murphy
Published on April 7, 2011
article image

Nearly everything comes with an instruction manual, except the one thing that perhaps should:  children.  After-all, look at the topics covered in most manuals – safety, programming, and troubleshooting – who could better benefit from these instructions than a parent?  But instead of being supplied with a one-size-fits-all set of directions upon their birth, we have to rely on our own instincts, writing our own manuals as we go through a grueling on-the-job training process.  Sometimes we get it right; sometimes we make mistakes along the way. 

Everyone, now turn to Chapter 497:  What To Do When Your Daughter Wants To Go To A Lil Wayne Concert. 

Lil Wayne, for those of you who might not know – and if you don’t know, any teenager will accuse you of having lived under a rock for at least the last decade – is a wildly popular rap artist.  He has been described as being to rap what Michael Jackson was to pop.  And he is, in my opinion, the writer of some of the most vulgar and offensive song lyrics that I have ever had the displeasure of hearing. 

I would have remained blissfully oblivious to exactly how vulgar his lyrics are except my daughter, Shelby, started listening to his music a few years ago.  I might admit to finding some of his plays on words and puns clever, if they weren’t surrounded by profanity and sentiments that are sexually degrading to women.  Keith and I wondered where we went wrong in writing the “programming” chapters of our child’s instruction manual – Shelby was raised on my alternative metal and his classic rock preferences.  But rap?  Isn’t that gang music that promotes violence, and sees women as being nothing more than sex objects?  Doesn’t it glorify drinking, drugs, and other means of self-destruction – all the “things which happen to be a major problem among many children today” as is the claim of an on-line article titled “Is Rap Actually Music or is it a Bad Influence”.

It’s sex, drugs, and roll ‘n’ roll, baby!  Wait a minute….that phrase was coined way back in 1977, years before Lil Wayne was even born.  “Is Rap Actually Music or is it a Bad Influence” continues to complain “that half of the time they are yelling their lyrics in such a loud and annoying way you may not be able to really understand what they are saying.”  Who wrote this stuff?  My mother?  Those were her exact words thirty years ago….and she wasn’t saying them in reference to rap.     

Online Store Logo
Need Help? Call 1-866-803-7096