And I can't lie, I'm pretty horrified by it, too. Oh the joys of teenagers, lol.

First, a bit of background:

We saw SD briefly on Xmas eve when we were in NJ and SD's hair is a hot mess. She has baby fine curly hair and she has wrecked it by getting it bleached and dyed various crazy colors. Now, don't get me wrong, the colors don't bother me, or SO. We both had ridiculous colored hair as teens and young adults. Heck, I had purple streaks in my hair when I first met SD. This summer, when she came to visit us, she had just had purple streaks put into her hair, but, her hair wasn't bleached first. Now, she has all kinds of purples and pinks in her hair and she is frying her hair by having it bleached in order to streak it. Again, it's not the colors, it's the fact that she's frying her hair that gets me with this one.

As I said, she has baby fine curly hair, and, when she actually takes care of it, it's gorgeous. But, SD doesn't know how to take care of it. She has no reason to learn because GUBM takes her to a salon every week to get her hair done. Both SO's sister and I have tried countless times to teach SD how to take care of her hair. This summer, she was complaining about her hair being frizzy and dry. I asked her if she wanted to learn how to take care of her hair herself and even offered to show her how to deep condition her hair. She accepted, so, I took her into the bathroom, showed her how to do it while doing it for her, and then told and showed her how she should be 'washing' her hair every day (using a conditioner to clean her scalp most days and using a sulfate-free shampoo other days, slopping on the conditioner to feed her poor thirsty hair, etc.). She LOVED the way her hair looked the next day, but, it was short lived. She went back to her old habits and decided it wasn't worth while to take care of her hair the way I taught her because GUBM would just keep taking her to a salon and because I clearly don't know how to take care of curly hair, as GUBM has told her (nevermind that I have curly hair, too, lol). ANYWAY.

Her hair was a hot mess. Frizzy, fried, tangled, and ridiculous looking in the back with flat-ironed fried sections in the front. It looked like Robert Smith had a baby with Flock of Seagulls, basically. I said nothing to her about her hair other than I was glad to see that she was embracing my favorite color (five bucks says next visit she'll have any color BUT purple in her hair, haha) even though I was equally horrified that GUBM was letting her fry her hair with bleach and weirded out by her chosen hair style. Side note: SD has to keep her hair short because she doesn't take proper care of it as it is, so, I imagine soon she might have to go the bald route...

Well. As it would turn out, SD has fallen in love with a band that has a similar hair style to what she's been wearing. So, she's emulating the members of this band. SD's one cousin got her a t-shirt for Xmas of this band (that SD picked out because SD has been relatively mum about this obsession save for trying to sing one of the songs to me and SO while she visited us). I have not heard of this band, so, when I got the first chance to do so, I googled them and holy crap it's hilarious. They're this weird, gothy, emo, dubstep band that take themselves a little too seriously, I think. I'm hoping that they aren't taking themselves that seriously, though, as I really don't know the band at all or their history and hope that they're pulling a Type O Negative (for those unfamiliar with Type O Negative, they started off mocking Goths and Goth bands).

SO and I were talking about the band last night and I pulled up the YouTube page. He said he's already checked out some of their videos and that he agrees they're ridiculous, but, that he's not going to take them away from SD because it's important to her. Totally not my point. I think it's hilarious that SD is taking this band that seriously. I would never mock the band to SD's face, no way, but, I will relish in the ridiculousness of it all when she's not here haha. In fact, I shared the videos with my co-workers yesterday and we all sat around, eating snacks, and watching the first few videos that came up on YouTube trying to contemplate just what their point is in all of this. Well, after chuckling about it with SO, I saw a video on YouTube that had lyrics from the song as the still image and they were horrendous. Sexually explicit and violent towards women horrendous. I hoped and prayed that they weren't the real lyrics to the song and that it was just a goof, but, I looked up the lyrics and yup, sure enough, about half of their songs are like that. Dear lord.

Now, I'm not uptight by any means, but, the thought of my SD13 listening to these songs makes me sick to my stomach because I know that GUBM isn't engaging her in meaningful conversation about these lyrics or telling her that these songs are for entertainment and that the way these guys talk about women is not appropriate. In fact, I was even more horrified to find out that the song she tried singing to us over the summer was pretty graphic. It's a song about Hello Kitty. But, it's not about Hello Kitty at all. :sick: When she tried singing it to us, she 'struggled' with some of the words in the chorus and now I'm not sure if she just couldn't remember them (or didn't know them), or, if she realized halfway through telling us about the song that it was horribly inappropriate to sing her dad and SM a song that talks about sex and oral sex in a very blunt manner, lol. I'm hoping for the former, but, honestly, I am betting it's the latter.

SO remained rather mum as I sat here and looked at the lyrics. Finally, I asked him "Well, what is your take on this? I know there were sexually explicit songs when we were growing up, but, the sexual content was more veiled than these songs by far". He's personally not a fan of songs like that, and, honestly, doesn't care if other people want to listen to those kinds of songs. But, he's pretty horrified to think that his daughter is listening to songs that degrade women and equate them to sexual objects AND emulating and loving the band that does so. He said he's going to read up on their lyrics and try to engage SD in conversation about the lyrical content of the songs, try to find out what it is that she likes so much about this band, and what the songs mean to her. Basically, get her to think about things and use her brain a little bit more.

My guess is she found this band through YouTube. That's her favorite activity on the internet, to surf YouTube and just click on videos that randomly pop up. This is my problem with SD putting on headphones and listening to YouTube without parental input (which she did the entire time she was on her laptop this past summer when she said she was "writing"), she's listening to and taking in all of these things that she really isn't old enough to understand without anyone having her challenge herself. Half of their songs are totally fine for someone her age to listen to, the rest of them? Well, let's just say that I wouldn't listen to them with MY mom, and I'm 30! Haha.