parental advisory

The sort out continues, found a few things today that made me remember things I’d forgot about - I love it when that happens.

In a box under Sons bed was the Ice T tape.

Not sure what the name of the album is but I remember this tape very well. It begins with Ice saying :
“If you are offended by words like bitch, fuck, ho…(insert a bunch of other swear words)…take the tape out now……
This is not a pop album…….
…Oh by the way suck my motherfucking dick”

Son discovered Hip-Hop when he was about 11, one of his friends older brothers gave him a Wu Tang CD. I don’t agree with a lot of censorship, educating your children about right and wrong is more important to me. So whilst it might’ve been considered inappropriate by some people I let him listen to whatever he wanted.
As long as he wasn’t gonna sing ‘Wu Tang aint nothing to fuck with’ in front of my mum or his teachers I trust him make his own choices.
He has been brought up to make the right ones.

I give credit to the Wu for enlightening Son to some parts of black history too.
He’s mixed race and as a white parent raising a black child it sometimes worried me that there were aspects of his culture I couldn’t give him. Although when he came home from school with his first self selected library book and it was a history of Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln and Malcom X I figured I done ok.

He’s very self aware.

So the Hip-Hop, and the language of some of it, wasn’t a problem.
Fuck it he’s my kid and he’s listened to me swearing all his life, so when a friend of mine on hearing that he was getting into that kind of music gave him the aforementioned Ice T tape it was fine. In fact Son, who was probably 12 or 13 couldn’t wait to play it to me - he thought it was hilarious.

A while after this Son started hanging around with a new friend called Fraser. The new mate was at our house most afternoons after school. I asked Son why they never went to Fraser’s house, he said
“his house is weird, his Mum says you got to ask if you want a glass of water and he‘s not allowed to play computer games”
If Fraser was in our house he would constantly ask me to check the time - he told me if he was ever late home he would be grounded for a week.

Strict parents then.
No wonder he liked our house so much. I would tell the kids to help themselves if they wanted anything and our little front room was actually Sons room for him and his friends so they could use the Playstation without bothering me.

But after about three weeks of being round every day Fraser was suddenly noticeably absent.
Son said he didn’t think he wanted to be his mate anymore because every day at school when he or the other lads asked him if he was coming round later he had ‘something’ to do. Boys being boys it didn’t really seem to bother them, there was about 8 of them in their little group anyway.

About a week went by and then this particular day I was in the house on my own and there was a knock at the door.
I opened it and there was Fraser.

“My Dad says I have to give this back”……and handed me the Ice T tape.

I've put the tape in the memory box.