You see, my son is convinced that at the ripe old age of 12, he no longer needs school as his mother, step-father and sister never finished high school, although his sister is currently working on her GED. He knows all that he needs to know to succeed in life right now and all that school is doing is keeping him from his dream of being a (don't laugh) rap star. Now, as my wife will testify I have no rhythm. I can feel the beat and the groove in music, but if I try to dance to it, there are paramedics called to the scene to try to help the guy on the dance floor taking an epileptic fit. My son, the fruit of my loins, is even LESS coordinated in music then that. Well maybe the record company can create an image for him where is the ultimate gangsta' bad boy and just have him perform in a body cast so he wont have to move and ruin the illusion. Okay, the problem of his inability to dance has been solved. Next would have to be the lyrics. What does he have to say that people are going to want to hear? Yes, we've established that he's somewhat bright for his age, but he really doesn't know anything about the real world. His life has been somewhat insulated from the mean streets so far and with such a limited view of society, he'll have to rely on what he has been taught up to this point for his ideas. Great, we can expect to hear amazing rap songs dealing with Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, the pharohs and mummies. I can see it now, "Hammurabi's Rap" will be a smash hit. Okay....again, maybe the record companies will have to come to his aid there and provide him with the material to sing. Lastly (and of do mean LASTLY in this case), is the question of talent. I realize that for many rap performers talent doesn't neccessarrily equate to success. The few CD's my son has are filled with background music from many songs I knew growing up that have been 'sampled' for the rappers to rap over. I have heard Toto's "Africa" butchered musically while someone wails as if suffering from acute appendicitis over the chorus. I have head the synthesizer line from Styx's "Man In The Wilderness" used note for note and repeated in another song. The words that are spoken or half sung in those recordings are hardly intelligible much of the time and for some reason, I think that is actually a good thing. So if you're sampling music from other musicians that actually KNOW how to write songs I guess you dont need to know how to write music.
None of these facts seem to deter him in the last. I'm glad that he can hold onto his dreams so tightly. I just wish that he was a bit more realistic about them. All of my children know better then to raise a hand to me in anger. If they do, the know that they run the risk of it being returned to them broken. I am not a violent person by ANY stretch of the imagination. In fact, I am quite the opposite, but I will not have my children thinking that when they disagree with me, that the way to solve the problem is by raising a hand to me in anger. The problem comes in that my wife is now my children's step-mother. My ex-wife has made quite certain in the past to constantly drill it into my son's head that, "You don't have to listen to her....she's nothing to you" over and over again, regardless of how much we stated otherwise to him and how often we corrected her assesment of the situation. My ex would further stir the pot by telling my son that, "She can't hit you or she can go to jail for it". Great......so now my son is basically told by his mother that if he doesnt like what my wife tells him, he doesn't have to listen to her and if she tries to do anything to him for disregarding her, then she is going to jail. As a result, my son has gotten more and more brazen in his attitude toward my wife since Christmas. Just a few nights ago while I was at work, he was told to go to his room after he was talking to mother on the phone and was smart mouthing my wife because of it. He didn't want to so he kicked, scratched, bit and threw things at my wife in an attempt to convey that she had no jurisdiction over him there. She eventually got him to his room and removed his radio. She ended up calling the local police over to try to explain to my son that what he did was considered assualt and if she wanted, he could have been sent to a juvenile detention facility for it. He seemed more upset that the cops got involved rather then being sorry for the actions that caused everything. He claims that he wants to live at his mother's because at least there everyone loves him. I can see how it certainly appears that way when we are the ones that have to deal with him day in and day out be responsible for his discipline when he needs it. We have people from the outside (strangely mostly people that my ex has dealings with) that say we should allow him more time over at his mothers. In my mind, this only would reinforce to him that if he wants something bad enough, all that he has to do is act up as much as he wants to until he gets it. I'm sorry, but I am not one of those people that believe that the ends justifies the means and I never will. So, in a few days because of his behavior he is going to get checked medically for any chemical imbalance (as his mother and sister have) as a cause for his out of control behavior. If no medical reason can be found, I think "Lil JJ WonderBread" here IS actually going to have a much better idea of what the mean streets are like and what a rough life can be like the next time he loses it on his step-mother.