Spare the metal, spoil the child.

Michele of A Small Victory has a new piece at Raising Hell about teaching her children how to separate the wheat from the chaff musically.

Natalie thinks Avril Lavigne is punk. DJ thinks Matchbox 20 is hard. We sit in the living room watching the Grammys and I listen to them discuss music. I shake my head in sad disgust and ask my husband where we went wrong. Finally, when Natalie insists that Good Charlotte defines the new punk movement, we realize it's time for action.

Obviously they don't remember the days of turning the living room into a mosh pit while listening to Metallica's Black Album. If they did, they wouldn't be calling Puddle of Mudd heavy metal.

We drag them over to the CD case. It's time to teach these kids right from wrong. Mind you, I don't care what kind of music they listen to. But I insist they pay homage to the bands of my wreckless youth properly.

They sit on the floor, more frigthened than Dave Matthews in a mob of Guns n Roses fans.

This, I say, is punk. I spit when I say the word punk. I'm holding a Misfits album. Yes, album. As in vinyl. I don't have a turntable to play it on, but they get the point by just looking at the album cover. I run through my vinyl collection. I call out the names of the bands and shout PUNK! after each of them. My husband punctuates this by yelling out New Found Glory, NOT PUNK!

Bwaha. I used to think I might have to stage an intervention with my niece, whose mother is a big Michael Bolton fan, but she's turning to old 70s rock bands on her own. Every generation rebels in its own way, I suppose.