A Mother's Letter to the Foo Fighters

Dear Foo Fighters:

I don’t know much about you. I like your songs, but can’t remember their titles. I can picture at least two of your faces, but can’t remember your names. I do recall the music video featuring you as flight attendants, but don’t recall the last time I watched MTV, so I must be digging deep there. So clearly this is not a fan letter, per se. Nope, it’s a warning-letter-slash-request-for-help. You’d better check yourselves, Foos, because my 5-year old is watching you closely.

You see, my baby boy reeeeeally digs you. And, um, he’s five. Naturally you may think he also is into his extensive CD collection featuring the greatest hits of Sesame Street, Bob the Builder, The Wiggles… even Free to Be You and Me (a personal favorite that I used to have on record… ah the good ‘ol days). And oh the Kindermusik songs. They are in his room, in our cars, on our iPods…

But no! Kindermusik be damned! Thanks to his getting a glimpse of you on Palladia, now we’re all Foo Fighters all the time!

I blame you, Foos. I blame you that my 5-year old said to me last week (from his spot in the hallway at Kindermusik where he was in time out for retaliating against age-appropriate music), “Here’s the deal, Mom - I just don’t like this music. I like rock star music. I need drums and guitars. This? Is not rock star music.”

I tried a meager come back about the fact that all musicians have to start at a place of learning rhythm, and that learning all instruments will help him eventually be better at both drums and guitars, and that these are the benefits of Kindermusik, yadda yadda. But he wasn’t having it. “Rock star music, mom. I want to scream into the microphone.”

It’s not just the screaming. My 5-year old, Foos, wants to wear his hair like yours. Long. He wants to headline an amphitheater concert in a big city in the pouring rain. Like you did. He wants to strap an electric guitar to his torso and head bang. Mmm hmm.

“When I grow up, I’m going to join the Foo Fighter team,” he reminds me occasionally from his booster in the back seat. You know, because he’s five and all, and still sits in a booster seat. But yet loves the hard rock. He tells me these things when other bands come on the radio. Like, oh, the Rolling Stones. Yes you, Foo Fighters, are cooler than the Stones in my 5-year old’s humble opinion.

No, neither you nor Charles Barkley is a role model. But this mom is a wee bit concerned about the glimpse I’m currently getting into my son’s teen years (and having heart palpitations) and so anything, ANYTHING you can do to show my baby that it’s totally cool to be a head-banging heavy metaler while also being an upstanding young citizen who eats his veggies and respects his parents? Yeah, that would be awesome.

Very best wishes with the next album and all,
Mama Hawks