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What you need to know to be a Rock Star:  Raising Dysfunctional Rock Star’s Children

Madonna named her kid “Lourdes”.  Sonny and Cher named their kid “Chastity”.  Steven Tyler’s kid is named “Liv” (which admittedly isn’t all that weird, but did you see her in Silent Fall?).  The lifestyle of your average rock star condemns children to a lifetime of dysfunction.  So, knock up a supermodel, or playmate and let’s get started on your little freak.  (If you don’t yet have a supermodel to knock, please see the April issue of NC)

We throw the term around a great deal, but we should define “dysfunctional” in case you lost that neuron during your last intravenous drug binge.  A person who is “dysfunctional”, when confronted with a “normal” social situation (say walking in a crowd), behaves in a manner that is either publicly or personally destructive (i.e. they go bitchcakes and hurt themselves or others). 

“What makes having dysfunctional kids bring you anywhere closer to being a rock star?” you ask surreptitiously.  Let me answer that with one word, Saturn (and no I don’t mean the official college graduation gift of entire middle class).

Saturn, the Roman god of the harvest, and at one point, the Greek god of music, (thus the world’s first washed up rock star), devoured his own young at the time of their birth.  As a result, the ones who escaped were some very messed up kids, the entire Roman Pantheon (that’s all the Roman or Greek gods), actually.  The key point being that they were extremely messed up famous kids, Jupiter (or Zeus if you watch Xena) being the most famous of his children.  Without Jupiter, you would likely have never heard of Saturn. Saturn then gets the planet next to Jupiter named after him.  You see, extremely messed up kids make great extremely messed up famous kids (and rocket your music back into the annoying windshield glare that we call fame).  They are like “washout” insurance. Which, you could use, since your performing career will likely be shorter than Lil Kim’s “Concert for the Taliban”.

According to all those child-rearing books there are some rather simple steps to prevent raising dysfunctional children.  That, of course, gives us a nice blueprint to your child’s complete maladjustment.  The books with the most pictures all agree that you need to remember the three R’s:

Rules

These are by no means spoken rules.  These are engrained through consistent demonstration and constant unexplained punishment.  Here are few that you can drive home without ever actually saying a word:

With these messages constantly re-enforced through confusing signals like shooting up in the den and telling your kids not to use drugs, you’ll be well on you’re way to the Rock and Roll Hall of fame (which is in Ohio, to lower their price of drugs).

Roles:

Here is where things start to pay off.  You have three major roles that you train your child in. 

1. Hero: This one is my favorite.  Constant praise and impossible messages drive this guy.  It starts out by telling the child impossible lies like “You can do anything you put your heart into”.  (For those of you Caretaker patsies whining that “You HAVE to tell that to kids”, go find a burnt out Hero, so they can kick your resentful, hopeful, little ass)  When the child fails, their assumption will be that is was for lack of trying, not for trying the wrong thing.  The burden to succeed and to earn praise will become overwhelming, to the point that it is more important than any relationship that they have in their lives.  This kid absolutely needs acting lessons.  By the time they land the role in Scary Movie 6: Just Nude Chicks and Pot Jokes, you’ll be thanking me.

See also Saint:  an overly spiritual or religious version of the hero, they make great clerics or cult leaders.

2. Rebel/Scapegoat:  Born to do all the things that you do wrong.  They act like a mirror, inheriting all the things you hate about yourself. Their flaws seem magnified, since, after all, you rarely steal from yourself or break your own favorite stuff.  The first time the kid screws something up, point out how they always make mistakes, are always late, can’t get anything right, etc.  Soon the child will learn that making mistakes draws attention.  The next time you start tearing up the house or detonating farm animals in the backyard, this kid will be trying to distract the negative attention from you by destroying the Scottish monarchy or cloning humans.  It won’t take long before you’ve created a magnified duplicate of all of your least favorite qualities.  Make sure this one learns how to play the guitar.

See also Mascot:  Distracts by being cute or charming, manipulates people by seeming helpless or innocent.  This kid was designed for the silver screen.

3. Caretaker/Little Parent: Almost useless to us.  This kid tries to make up for parents short comings by acting the way a “normal” parent would.  Now they actually have no idea of how a parent would act so they do everything in their power to be nurturing, to the point of obsession.  Secretly, they hate this job, and just want to be everything that they are trying to make up for.  Keep this kid at home to take care of you until one of the other drones makes it big, as this one will never amount to anything (which by the way is this kids least favorite “recording”)

See also Mediator: resolves everyone’s problems, fixes broken relationships, all to give their own world a sense of control.

Recordings:

This is what you hear when you are alone at night and the demons come.  Messages parents tell children that act like LP’s with pot seeds jammed in the groves (For those of you too young to understand that last thing, you used to use an LP and credit card to get the seeds out of your pot.  For those of you too young to understand that last thing, pot used have seeds.  For those of you too young to understand that last thing, we used to have these things called LP’s).  Each role has it’s own variant of these recordings:

·        Nothing is impossible if you just try hard enough

·        You never get anything right.

·        Why are you so stupid?

·        Why can’t you be more like your brother/sister?

·        You’re just like your father/mother.

All three are beautiful dysfunctions, but the Hero is the money child.  The irony of the whole thing is that Hero parents raise Rebels, Rebel parents raise Caretakers, and Caretaker parents raise Heroes. 

Disclaimer:  Life is hard.  It’s harder when you’re stupid.

Disclaimer to the disclaimer: We swear that we will never be like our parents, but unless we consciously work to be something different than what we became in response to their failings, we will be much worse.  We are little more than the product of our experiences, and p is little more than the product of 1.365 * 2.2.  The Taliban appreciates Eminem far more than Lil Kim or Toni Braxton for that matter.  Procreation is no laughing matter unless it’s between two rhinos, because that just a lot of lovin.