Tech talk

Some of my favorite comments from my 5-year-old relate to his thorough understanding of the modern conveniences that I never had as a child.

Such as my iPod.

My Nano is a familiar part of our daily drives, so much so that I actually made a particular mix of his favorite songs, ready to play at his request.

Sometimes, I'm in the mood for my own music, but that got me in trouble a week ago.

I played what I call my "Mellow Mama" playlist, a long mix of music that includes, among others, several songs by Poe.

Her song, "Angry Johnny," started, with its familiar, slow beat that I often find comforting during my drive. But the lyrics caught my son's attention.

Johnny, angry Johnny. This is Jezebel in Hell.
I'm gonna kill ya. I'm gonna blow you.
Away
Suddenly, the boy started squealing, in laughter, "I'm gonna kill ya?"

I quickly turned the volume off and pulled over so I could change the playlist.
Bad Mommy, I thought. Now I'm never going to hear the end of this.

"I'm sorry, honey. That was a bad song. Mommy will take that off the iPod."
"Why did you have the song on there?"
"I like her voice. But that's a bad thing to say."
"Yeah, it's bad."

I think I stammered something about the importance of life and how killing is bad before I could continue driving. I started playing the Frida soundtrack - lots of upbeat mariachi numbers and even if the lyrics are trouble, it's in Spanish so he would never know.

That night, I dumped Angry Johnny from that playlist and thumbed through my iTunes to weed out any other potential lyrical disasters. Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails. I guess my listening tastes aren't PG enough.

Perhaps someone would fault me for getting into the situation into the first place, but I guess I've never been the type of parent that tries to set a 24/7 perfect world for him. I do limit his TV choices, but he also watches football and the TV news sometimes and he listens to NPR with me, as well as the jazz or Depeche Mode that I chose on some days. We read the papers in front of him and we have kept most of the same books and magazines on the shelves, in the same places they were before he was born.

Still I hoped he wouldn't repeat the episode to anyone. With my luck, he would tell the teacher about my song choice and I'd have state investigators at my door that afternoon.

So the kicker was yesterday, as we were driving I set the tunes up on an improved playlist.
And I quote:
"So, Mommy, did you remove the I'll kill ya song on your iPod?"