When I was

just a kid - before Ginger from "Gilligan's

Island" sent me headlong into puberty - my

older brother got into serious trouble with my parents

for buying a "Jethro Tull" album. Now recently,

and quite a few years later, my good friend Jamie and his

wife Misty went to Chastain Park to see Jethro Tull. This

is not odd for our generation to revisit such nostalgia,

but Jamie and Misty took their 2-year-old triplet girls.

Before you prepare your

diatribe on proper parenting, consider my point in

bringing this up. What was once thought of as dangerous,

immoral and loud is now just elevator music by

comparison. What my generation thought was rebellious is

now just quaint.

I feel like Greg Brady

demanding his own room so he could have some privacy to

stare at his lava lamp and black light posters. I would

say I fear for this generation, but I will leave that for

our politicians and preachers. I can only laugh at the

silly things we have become.

I was coming out of a

restaurant the other day and saw a little girl, about 9

or 10 years old with a tattoo. Hopefully it was a

"press-on," but what made it disturbingly goofy

was that it was applied at her waist, in the rear,

extending down into her jeans. Just who put that there?

I wet and apply Pokemon

tattoos on my 4-year-old Olivia regularly, but what was

the mother of this child thinking? In their house have

they given up playing Barbie to play Jennifer Lopez:

"Quit playing and come

down for dinner, Bethany."

"Just a minute,

mom."

(Child acting out with

dolls...) "Oh Puff Daddy, I love your white fur

coat... Wassup, Jennifer, I love your see-through dress

and 6-inch pumps, but where will you hide my pistol if

the cops come?"

In the land of the

Internet, 99 TV channels and the teenage navel ring, we

are primed to find our footing, I just know it. Our kids

have had such access and for so long, that they really

are bored for what works for them the best: just a little

attention from mom and dad.

While watching the

fireworks on the 4th of July, my 2-year-old Davis asked

me to take him to bed. He fell asleep during the grand

finale, no less.

So, what of Jamie and Misty

and their triplets? Which is better? To leave the kids

home with a sitter (who most likely is pressing play to

porno-rapper Eminem the moment parents walk out the door)

or to drag them along to see the retro version of a rock

band who in the '70s had the insolence and vulgarity to

mention "snot" in one of their songs.

It is great that our

generation of older parents is hauling their kids along

with them everywhere. Not to mention in Jamie and Misty's

case their girls will turn out to be heavy metal music

aficionados. Though they are only 2, Jamie related to me

his girls' conversation at the show.

Ashton: "Is that a

Marshall Stack with a 40-inch cabinet?"

Brennen: "Don't be a

dweeb, you're thinking about The Who's rig.

Chandler: "You are

both wrong, Marshall doesn't even make a... oops, I just

did a boo-boo in my diaper."

Times have changed.

Innocence might just be lost. But that is even more

reason to hold those things dear, closer to us than ever;

even if it just happens to be at an encore of Aqua Lung.