Parental Advisory

jonjhargreaves's picture Submitted by jonjhargreaves on

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Very happy to have my kids see/hear most things, as long as we have a chat about it before or after.

A naked MacDeMarco might make my daughter blush, last year my 2nd son was "interested" by some of the language used by Steve Mason, but I have no real problem with anything in sensible context or non gratuitous.

However, having just listened to Sun Kil Moon's "Dogs" from Benji, I might have to give that a miss or at least have a chat to the kids first, of course I suspect that song might not be part of a set at a "family festival".

Not sure I want to see Fat White Family for all kinds of reasons, so no worries there.

Any other Parental Advisories anyone is aware of? The kids are 13 and 8 year old boys and an 11 year old girl.

Thanks,
Jon

Elizabeth McEvoy's picture Elizabeth McEvoy replied on

We tell our 10 year old twins, "You might hear it, but don't repeat it"....seems to work at festivals, football and rugby matches and with their (considerably) older siblings.
I too was caught out by SKM's "Dogs" on first hearing....it's pretty unambiguous isn't it?
A couple of years ago we took the kids to the Literature tent to hear Simon Armitage. Unfortunately he'd cancelled and was replaced by John Cooper Clarke (who I love but as I discovered, best seen without the family in tow). We lasted about 2 minutes...I lost count of the f**ks, c**ts and tw*ts.... definately not one for the kiddies.

Spod's picture Spod replied on

First year for a while that the FuckButtons are not playing so you are half-way there :)

Its a festival so we are resigned to the fact that ours going to be exposed to some choice language, adult themes and other exotic-ness. Van Morrison accidentally let slip an F-bomb the one year during Sat headline slot so on that basis its going to happen, like it or not.

At least its in context with the Greenman experience which they will always remember.

Krasnyi's picture Krasnyi replied on

My then 9-year old daughter was impressed by Steve Mason's justifiably sweary rant - I helped to conetxtualise it by explaining how the current government perpetuates inequality or something along those lines - my kids will probably end up voting Tory.

jonjhargreaves's picture jonjhargreaves replied on

mmmm.... my tory Dad just arrived at the start of that rant.... He was not impressed that I seemed happy to let my then 7 year old stay to listen.... made my Green Man Saturday!

Elizabeth McEvoy's picture Elizabeth McEvoy replied on

There isn't enough sweary angry political comment at the moment...something I would actively encourage my kids to listen to and absorb to enrich the development of their own political viewpoint.
The current political scene seems to have been hijacked by dangerous right-wing "bumbling buffoons" trying to conceal their nasty agendas with an "I'm just a chap like you" act.
There doesn't even seem to be any effective opposition either at the moment, to inspire my kids.

peridot's picture peridot replied on

I agree entirely Elizabeth.

In my case, Steve Mason's rant was very mild compared to Mrs Peridot's pronouncements on the abilities of anyone who cuts her up, or otherwise offends her when out driving so our daughter has had such exposure from a very early age :)

bennyhana22's picture bennyhana22 replied on

My approach to this has always been not to 'protect' them from profanity in music, so long as it's not gratuitous. Let me qualify that: I stopped turning the music down when a swear word is imminent when my guys were, 10, 12 and 14. My philosophy was like Elizabeth's - yes, we all know some people use that language, but we don't need to repeat it. It's utter madness to think that they didn't all have varying levels of familiarity with all such terms by then anyway. Censoring music at that point seemed both foolish and wrong.

Saying that, I still ask my 16 year old to turn some hip hop down when my 13 year old is around because some of it is just plain unpleasant, lyrically. Child 3 listens to LOADS of very grown up music already, on his headphones, much of which has some profanity. Crazy to try to shield him. Does he swear? Well, not in fromt of me, anyway!

Ben

Krasnyi's picture Krasnyi replied on

I love it when they just don't hear it. My daughter got through John Grant doing 'Chicken Bones' a few years back completely oblivious to the 'fuck offs' and one of my highlights from last year was the Men who Cannot be blamed for nothing (or something similar) doing a song called 'Jesus was a fucking cockney' in Einstein's Garden with a group of happy 4-year olds clapping along at the front and my 9-year old daughter asking me what I was laughing at.

rayrad's picture rayrad replied on

i'm with stephen fry on this one

what do the words actually mean?

we'll happily tell our kids that the traffic was 'murder' or that our backs are 'killing' us

but won't let them hear a fuck or a cunt

both of which things have a pretty good chance of being actually lovely

unlike murder or killing

as stephen said to lorraine kelly on whatever chat show he was on, expounding this idea, "go on, lorraine, have a stab at cunt"

peridot's picture peridot replied on

Lorraine Kelly having a stab at cunt would certainly be an interesting development in daytime TV programming :)

Having heard the ridiculous admonishment of Holly Ross by Marc Riley earlier, it does seem increasingly necessary to reclaim our Anglo-Saxon vernacular. Her offence was to say 'turd'!

Slugger's picture Slugger replied on

Tim Minchin's "fuck the motherfucker he's a fucking motherfucker fuck the motherfucking pope" 2 years ago in the Far Out tent opened up quite an interesting and valuable debate with my kids.

Wakestock replied on

I did enjoy Paxo the other night asking Berlusconi: "Is it true you called Angela Merkel an unfuckable lard-arse?"
If it's good enough for Newsnight...