"It's just a FAD that you're going through....."

I remember my family telling me this all the time as a teen. "When you get older you'll laugh about how into heavy metal you were."





I'm the 2nd youngest of 7 kids and have brothers and sisters much much older than me. I now remind them on the regular that it's not a fad. And they were way wrong.

Anybody else have this said to them?

Same here. My parents always believed that heavy metal was evil. Seeing how I turned out as an adult, and that I’m still a heavy metal fan, has changed their mind.

I heard that a lot. But my folks see now that it was never any type of fad for me.

Yeah, I think this is a recurring theme here. In fact, my daughter was hanging out with me in the garage tonight and she put on some old Iron Maiden records and we were looking at the liners and the lyrics and I was telling her what my parent's thoughts were about "Satanic heavy metal".
Ha! All these years later, still headbanging.

Yes, when I was a kid, my mother always used to say that to me. Then one day while I was stuck listening to the Beatles, her favorite band, it dawned on me. "Mother" I asked, "when you were a kid, what was your favorite band?" She immediately said, "The Beatles" Then I asked, "did your mother think it was just a phase you were going through?" "Yes" she replied. "Then buckle up ma, cause this music you hate so much is my Beatles, and it ain't going nowhere."

Thirty some odd years later, I never had to explain to her again it was just a phase lol

Didn't we discuss this before? At any rate, I never heard this from my parents. I'm sure I got the occasional eye roll and the "How can you listen to that stuff?" but otherwise it was something I never heard, at least from my parents. One of my former bosses had mentioned it to me.

As the second youngest of nine and far removed from my siblings on either side I heard it all the time. Not anymore but I credit my eldest brother for my Rock/Metal music taste.

007 wrote:

Didn't we discuss this before? At any rate

To calm your apocalyptic fears of the dreaded repeated threads 9 years apart, I searched "FAD" before creating the thread and found nothing.

Please return to your regularly scheduled program.

I never heard this as a kid from my family, my mother didn't like it playing around the house but never told me it would be something I'd grow out of. My dad still listens to metal.

Big Rich wrote:

007 wrote:

Didn't we discuss this before? At any rate

To calm your apocalyptic fears of the dreaded repeated threads 9 years apart, I searched "FAD" before creating the thread and found nothing.

Please return to your regularly scheduled program.

Sorry. I didn't mean to get your panties in a bunch

Stender wrote:

I never heard this as a kid from my family, my mother didn't like it playing around the house but never told me it would be something I'd grow out of. My dad still listens to metal.

I think you'll find most people that this applies to are the old farts like me. Back when metal was new, parents probably didn't know WTF was happening, so they hoped and prayed it was just a phase. Your parents are probably my age, and I bet if you ask your dad, his parents probably thought it was just something he would grow out of eventually.

I don't remember my family caring.

Metal's been pretty mainstream in Finland anyway. I guess if I'd listen to like the most vile brutal extreme stuff or NSBM or something, then there'd have been a reaction. But I don't, so.

Wrecked Neck wrote:

Stender wrote:

I never heard this as a kid from my family, my mother didn't like it playing around the house but never told me it would be something I'd grow out of. My dad still listens to metal.

I think you'll find most people that this applies to are the old farts like me. Back when metal was new, parents probably didn't know WTF was happening, so they hoped and prayed it was just a phase. Your parents are probably my age, and I bet if you ask your dad, his parents probably thought it was just something he would grow out of eventually.

It wasn't my mom so much as it was my older brothers and sisters and their friends. I think my mom liked me getting into metal. I think mom was smart enough to figure out it caused me to meet friends.

I never got much input from my family or friends.

I still get eye-rolls and disappointment from older generations when they discover that I never "outgrew" heavy metal.

corplhicks wrote:

I still get eye-rolls and disappointment from older generations when they discover that I never "outgrew" heavy metal.

i think that has a lot to do with the popular perception of metal i.e. the glam 80s bands.

Metal is way past mainstream at this point.People have been desensitized to extreme metal It's no longer shocking to hear metal anymore, it's just not popular.

My parents never liked it much. Today, my wife still thinks it is evil and calls it the devil's music.

Don't think they ever said I would outgrow it. They didn't like it blaring through the house though. They did however try to get me to cut my hair which they said I would outgrow. Haha guess they were right about that.

Gilbert wrote:

My parents never liked it much. Today, my wife still thinks it is evil and calls it the devil's music.

Ive had this said to me, and they were right, cuz for me it was a fad

No one ever said this to me. My mother was a concert pianist and my father loved music so something was always playing in our house. All my Mom would do is point out which classical compositions metal bands had ripped off when she walked passed my room. Thanks Mom!

I don't recall my parents ever saying it to me directly. If they had that opinion, they kept it to themselves.

I did have a similar discussion of sorts with one of my wife's friends years ago who seemed to think I should listen to other music now that I was married and had kids. I saw no reason to change.

We don't really associate with said friend anymore, but I did hear that her husband cheated on her, the marriage is in shambles and they are miserable. Meanwhile, I'm still happily married. Coincidence?

My parents didn't care what my brother and I listened to as long as they didn't have to hear it, so all we ever heard was "Turn that down!"

Even during the height of the PMRC anti-rock hysteria, all they would ever say was "You spend your money on that stuff?" Haha. Mom was a Beatles fan and Dad was an Elvis fan, and since both of those artists were targeted by the "devil's music" brigade during their heydays, to my parents it must've seemed like "Same nonsense, different decade."  

MetalGuy71 wrote:

I did have a similar discussion of sorts with one of my wife's friends years ago who seemed to think I should listen to other music now that I was married and had kids. I saw no reason to change.

I used to get that from some of my office mates work place, like "You still listen to that stuff? At YOUR age?" ... apparently I was supposed to dump all of my metal CDs and start listening to the Dave Matthews Band when I turned 30. Who knew? haha.

Fat Freddy wrote:

MetalGuy71 wrote:

I did have a similar discussion of sorts with one of my wife's friends years ago who seemed to think I should listen to other music now that I was married and had kids. I saw no reason to change.

I used to get that from some of my office mates at my previous work place, like "You still listen to that stuff? At YOUR age?" ... apparently I was supposed to dump all of my metal CDs and start listening to Dave Matthews Band when I turned 30. Who knew? haha.

Ha! That's funny. If I remember correctly (and I know I was drinking at the time), but I used Dave Matthews as my argument too. "Oh, what, I'm a dad so I'm supposed to listen to Dave Matthews now? Please!"

The Dave Matthews Band. The band for white-bread dads everywhere!!