I take you to the candy shop
I’ll let you lick the lollypop
Go ‘head girl, don’t you stop
Keep goin ’til you hit the spot
Those were the words’the cleanest of them, anyway’that brought Danielle Toth into the Clarkston News. She was hoping to send a message to other parents.
‘Be aware of the music your kids are downloading,? she said. ‘When they’ve got their headphones on they look happy as a clam, but a lot of the stuff they listen to is not appropriate.?
Toth learned the hard way. Her 10-year-old daughter, a fifth-grader at Independence Elementary, found an iPod for Christmas, and downloaded the songs ‘Smack That? and ‘Candy Shop.?
Unfamiliar with the titles, and fearing that the content of the songs was in line with the innuendo, Toth went to iTunes to check out the music that was funneling into her daughter’s head.
The lyrics were worse than she feared, both songs dripping with both explicit and implicit sexual references unfit for print here, and certainly unfit for the ears of a 10-year-old.
The artists ? ‘Smack That? by Akon and Eminem and ‘Candy Shop? by 50 Cent’portray themselves as superior, self-important ? and insatiable ? consumers of women. Lots and lots of women.
I was torn. I absolutely believe in the right to free speech, the right we as Americans have to express ourselves (although I do maintain that our founding fathers weren’t considering the hip-hop culture of 2007 when they drafted the First Amendment, but that’s neither here nor there).
Do I want censorship? No, of course not. If mature adults like this music for its artistic value, great. ‘Candy Shop,? after all, did hit the no.1 spot on the hip-hop charts, and it was, after all, nominated for a Grammy Award in 2006.
But that doesn’t make it OK for kids.
These artists are filling young minds with unhealthy ideas about sex, ideas about what they’re supposed to give, and what they’re supposed to take ? unhealthy ideas about what the opposite gender expects from them.
In fact, a study published in the August 2006 issue of Pediatrics, the peer-reviewed, scientific journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, found that teens who listen to music with degrading sexual lyrics are more likely to initiate and engage in more advanced sexual activity than those who do not.
What I would like is to see, but don’t expect, is some personal responsibility from artists like 50 Cent and the others, who make millions and millions of dollars by fishing around in the pockets of 13-year-old kids ? boys and girls both’who are embracing ideas they don’t yet understand.
I’d like to see personal responsibility from artists like the has-been Britney Spears, who lamented that she didn’t want to be a role model for young girls.
Both examples, to me, are reminiscent of the schoolyard bully ? they snatch away our children’s money,thier innocence, then kick dirt in their faces.
Problem is, our kids have been made to believe that the dirt tastes good, and they’re eating it up.
Other parents can learn from Danielle Toth, who was willing to take the time to listen to the music her daughter was absorbing, willing to risk her daughter’s anger by saying no. Willing to be a parent.