aries hit the nail on the head. if you’re a parent please read my post, im sorry its long-ish
im a young woman in my twenties now, and i’m B’H solidly frum, etc…when i was a teenager i went through a long phase of dressing not so tznius, wanting to be cool, and gobbling up secular music.
i pretty much gave my parents a lot of grief…and i credit my father 100% for why im still frum today. sadly, if he would have reacted like my mother, i for sure would have rebelled even more.
here’s the key: my mother reacted by telling me how “its not good, why are you listening to such garbage, you’re a bas yisrael, this isnt befitting for someone with such a beautiful neshama, the people whos sing this are lowlives, turn it off, its pure shmutz, etc.” all of what she said was 100% true, but did not connect with me whatsoever. i did not want to hear that, i just wanted to listen to good music.
my father however…oh what a smart man. he emphathized with me over it, and tried connecting as much as he could, and when he did have to draw the line, did it very very nicely. examples “wow, what is this music, i heard it from downstairs, what a catchy beat, terrific rhythm…ugh, but their message is ridiculous. shame we dont have such nice music with a normal message at least…oh well, enjoy” or “sweetie, try keeping it a little lower, i dont want the kids hearing this, because once they really hear it they’ll be hooked cuz its such great music…i just would rather them not know of it.” or “hey! i remember this song from when i was a kid! oh boy, now i wont get it out of my head for a week…i used to sing it all day. so much for me not listening to secular music, now i’ll be singing it for the next week!” when we’d be in a store and a song went on he’d say”i recognize this. werent you listening to it the other day?” instead of ignoring it completely or making a fuss.
basically, what my father did was identified with me and agreed that yes, the music was awesome, yes, when he heard it he couldnt help but listen. he acknowledged that i was normal for liking it, and that he too used to love listening. but that its not really ideal, and its something to work on.
you have no idea how smart that was. i felt like i could trust him because he understood me, and i opened up to him a lot.
by doing this, he also made his mussar, when he had to give it, MUCH stronger and more listened too. because he didnt flip when he heard me listening to most music, there were a few times when he heard me listening to songs that were, lets just say, really not so nice. then came “kid, throw this cd in the garbage and put on whatever you were listening to before, this is really not nice, ur probably not even allowed to listen to it halachicaly. they would never have been able to produce a song like this when i was your age, things have really changed.”
please, parents, i know it’s a lot more natural to take my mother’s approach. i see way too many ppl do it. but believe me, its not worth it. if i hadnt had my father counteracting her (TRUE!) words, i would have gone far, far off. B”H, because my father was chilled and tried connecting, i got a lot of things in a normal perspective, grew up,stayed frum and now am trying to keep my husband in kollel, while not listening to secular music.