Explicit Lyrics, Tough Subjects, and Killing the Fear of The Truth Monster

“Teeth” represents the Fear of Truth Monster from the series of 8 new songs in Lady Gaga’s re-release of The Fame. – Information found on Genius.com

When I look back at my childhood, I can see that there were a lot of contradictions in the way I was raised.

My mom and stepdad loved watching stand-up comedians.  Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, and George Carlin were all favorites, and we’d watch their cable TV specials whenever they came on.  When video rental stores started popping up in our town, they’d rent tapes of their favorite performances.  I was never sent out of the room due to the language they used or the subject matter discussed.

My dad loved watching horror movies, and again, I was never sent away while they were on.  (A week’s worth of nightmares once made 6-year-old me wish I had been, but that’s got nothing to do with the topic at hand.)

Swearing was not unusual among my family members, in either household.  The men were mostly former military, almost all were fairly heavy drinkers, and one grandfather was a bartender.  Family get-togethers were never G-rated in the language department.  I mentioned briefly how I detest censorship, especially in music, in my last post—a subject most kids in the late 70’s and early 80’s probably didn’t spend much time thinking about, but I formed my opinion on it at a pretty early age, and it hasn’t changed.

Yet in spite of the words I heard on a regular basis from all of these sources, I didn’t pick up the habit myself until I was an adult.  I usually didn’t even swear around my close friends, who were much more comfortable with flinging f-bombs.  I don’t know that it was ever stated outright, but I knew—instinctively, it seems—that I was not allowed to say cuss words growing up, and there would have been unpleasant consequences if I had.  I never uttered one in my mom’s presence, and because she passed away when I was 15, I honestly don’t know if I ever would have been able to bring myself to do it later on in life.  I was over 20 years old, possibly already engaged to Non Monster, the first time I ever said one in front of my dad.  (I think I said “ass”, but all I remember clearly is that he and my stepmother thought it was hilarious.  They asked me to say it again.)

When Mini Monster came along, I cleaned up my language considerably (for a while).  I didn’t want her to become the toddler who would parrot only the worst of what she heard at home when out in public, so I started using replacements.  You know…”fudge”, “son of a biscuit”, and other tame substitutes.  But most of our family and friends were not on board with this method and felt no desire to follow my lead, so eventually I settled for making sure she knew there are words that are not appropriate for use at certain times or in certain places.

The first time Mini Monster asked me, “Mommy, is ___ a bad word?”, I realized that I had a decision to make about how to handle certain questions.  My mom’s method was often to avoid them; change the subject if something awkward or embarrassing came up, or make up an answer that was often just this side of a lie so I’d stop asking.  I think that’s how I was in middle school before I learned the actual words for certain body parts—both male and female—and why I was grown before I actually became comfortable with using those terms.  In the end, my decision was to be honest.  I wasn’t going to make anything seem “forbidden”, or try to put off her questions.  So I quickly got used to hearing my sweet, innocent little girl ask me if it was OK to say “shit”, or why one of the boys at daycare got a time out for calling another kid a “dick”, and I did my best—with varying degrees of success—to keep a straight face and not crack up laughing while I answered.

Then she grew up a little more, and the topics started to get more difficult.  Mean girls became a more frequent problem at school, and sometimes she’d come home in tears over the nasty things they’d say to her.  Her taste in clothing, which includes both typically girls’ and typically “boys’ styles, depending on her mood and what catches her eye, started coming up more often.  Her love of Hot Wheels cars, Star Wars, superheroes, and why some boys felt the need to tell her she wasn’t supposed to (or even allowed to!) like any of those things because she’s a girl, started coming up more often.  And bringing with it many flashbacks to my own school days, the dreaded word “fat” started rearing its ugly head.

Enter Lady Gaga.  I swear to you, she and her music have been a godsend as a parenting tool.  How weird does THAT sound?  I know I certainly never expected it, but it’s the absolute truth.

Let me once again refer to my dislike of music censorship.  I don’t like to listen to “sanitized” versions of songs, where cuss words are either bleeped out or changed, so if a version with explicit lyrics exists, that’s the one I’m putting on my playlist, and I haven’t “blacklisted” any songs for Mini Monster because of language or subject matter.  (Well, no Lady Gaga songs, anyway.  There are a few by other artists from back in my high school and post-high school days that I’m not anxious for her to hear.  “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails comes to mind.)

Take Born This Way, for starters.  An entire song full of positive, “love yourself as you are” messages?  Yes, please!  As we listened to it (sometimes on repeat), we started talking about the meaning behind different lines and verses.  “It doesn’t matter if you love him, or capital H-I-M…”, “A different lover is not a sin…”, and “No matter gay, straight, or bi, lesbian, transgender life…” gave us the chance to revisit past conversations about things we’d seen and heard on TV, this time going a little deeper than a general, “sometimes boys love other boys, or girls love other girls”.  Same sex marriage, religious beliefs (especially the fact that ours do not include hating anyone for who they love or how they identify), and the people we know and love who either have been or could be affected by the way others who don’t share our views see them and treat them.  It’s an ongoing conversation, and I’m planning to touch on it again in another post sometime soon.  It just needs more space than a single paragraph here.

Or Til It Happens to You.  Definitely a heavy subject, but it’s so important.  So we’ve covered it.  We listened to the song and later watched the music video, and her Oscars performance, together.  We discussed how Lady Gaga talked about being raped at 19, and how it has affected her.  My mom and I never talked about the fact that I might one day face a situation where I was in danger of being assaulted or raped.  Oh sure, I got the same “Don’t talk to strangers” line that every child—especially in the early ‘80s when the kidnapping and murder of Adam Walsh was still in the news—heard from the adults in their lives.  I was always very aware of Stranger Danger.  But it might have been nice to be warned and aware of the possibility of danger coming in the form of a family friend (not a stranger) who was supposed to be sleeping off the excesses of his bachelor party in our basement, but instead slipped into my bedroom.  He didn’t go as far as raping me, thank God, but what he did do still wasn’t anything I was remotely prepared for at 13 years old.  I haven’t told Mini Monster about that yet, but I’m sure it will come up someday, and when it does, I’ll tell her the truth.  In the meantime, I’m doing my best to make sure she knows that NO ONE has the right to touch her anywhere, ever, without her permission.  That she understands the concept of consent, and that she knows she doesn’t HAVE to give it and can take it back.

Sometimes, the honesty comes with a little dose of humor.  Or a big one.  If you’re reading this as a member of the same fan group I’m in (and really, who else is reading this blog right now?), then you’ve likely seen me mention how Mini Monster doesn’t care for the song Love Game.  She once asked what Gaga meant by “disco stick”, and then she figured out what word was replaced in the line, “…with a smile on your mouth and your hand on your HUH!”  And that was the last time she listened to it willingly.  I now shamelessly threaten to play it on repeat in her room when she’s giving me a hard time getting out of bed in the morning.

Oddly enough, the most complicated conversation we’ve had so far didn’t even follow listening to one of Lady Gaga’s songs, but from watching her on “Carpool Karaoke” with James Corden.  It was during the part of the video where they start talking about some group’s song, which is apparently about having a wet dream.  We’d watched the same video multiple times already, so I’m not sure why this time was different, except for the fact that Non Monster was still working that night and not expected home until long after we were both asleep, instead of just being holed up in his basement “swamp” (it’s a Shrek reference).  She’s nowhere near as open with her dad as she is with me, so I suppose it’s not so surprising after all that she chose that moment to latch on to the subject and ask me what they were talking about.  It’s probably a good thing, too.  He almost had a stroke when she proudly pulled her very first bra out of the Target bag so she could show it to him; I might have been collecting his life insurance by now if he’d overheard even part of this conversation.

Have you ever had to fight the feeling that your brain was about to melt, while holding up your end of a serious discussion?  It ain’t easy, let me tell you.  Because when my daughter looked me dead in the eye and asked me “What does ‘ejaculating’ mean?”, then a barrage of follow-up questions about how and why that might happen, I’m pretty sure I lost more brain cells in about 10 seconds than I could safely spare.

But I held it together, Monsters, and I answered everything she threw at me.  I didn’t flinch.  I didn’t sugar-coat.  I didn’t dumb anything down.

Song lyrics came up again, and she asked about that damn opening line of Heavy Metal Lover.  (This kid does love to blindside me…I was not expecting to field questions about his "whiskey mouth" and why anyone would want it all over her "blonde south".)  Then she asked about Dancing in Circles, and other songs where Lady Gaga mentions touching herself.  In return for my truthfulness, she admitted that she already knew some of the things she’d asked me about, but she wanted to fact check what her friends had been saying at recess.  (In fifth grade.  Excuse me while I go curl up in a corner and rock for a minute.)

Was this discussion awkward and uncomfortable?  Hell, yes…for both of us.  But only at first.  And now, thinking back on it, I’m so incredibly grateful to have had it.

A lot of people would say I’m crazy to have been so blatantly honest with an 11-year-old girl about such complicated adult subjects.  (Non Monster would probably be one of them.  He knows we've talked about "stuff", but he has no idea how in-depth our discussions have been.)  Maybe some of you Little Monsters who are reading this would agree.  Some would say I should have made my answers more “age-appropriate”.  But as far as I'm concerned, if she’s mature enough to come to me and overcome the awkwardness and embarrassment in order to ask such questions in the first place, then I think I owe it to her to give the best answers I can.  Because someday in the not-too-distant future, she’s going to need to know that she can come to me and ask even harder questions, or tell me about something she’s done, or something that was done to her.  She’s going to need to know that I’m not going to freak out, or judge her, or punish her when what she needs is someone to listen, understand, and help if at all possible.

When that day comes, I’m going to need her to remember that we killed the Fear of The Truth Monster together over Carpool Karaoke, back when she was only 11.

Love and Paws Up always, Little Monsters.  Until next time.