Children Worry That Sexagenarian Rockers Are Negatively Influencing Parents
As time goes on, many sons and daughters of parents aged 50-70 years old are growing concerned over the subversive and dangerous influence rock 'n' rollers in their 50s, 60s and 70s are having on the older generation.
Worship of aged icons like the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, and Bob Dylan, say children, puts their parents at risk of imitating the "destructive behavior" of their idols, such as physical over-exertion, emotional immaturity, and staying up too late for people their age.
"Mom and Dad are at a particularly impressionable age," said Eliza Elstrom, a 35-year-old audiologist from Atlanta, GA. "Their brains aren't as strong as they used to be, and when they see someone their age on stage sprinting all over, indulging in dangerous activities like listening to loud music and acting like they were still kids, it makes a very bad impression."
Elstrom says she's concerned that the self-destructive antics of a charismatic old rocker like Mick Jagger could end with her mother in the hospital -- or worse.
"She could get so riled up by watching [Jagger] suggestively shuffling around the stage that she'll go outside to mow the lawn in her condition, and she'll die right then and there from a heart attack. The entertainment industry should police itself for encouraging that kind of reckless activity amongst the 50 and older crowd."
But is the entertainment industry really capable of self-regulating? Some suggest that only the government can protect the old from rock 'n' roll. One Chicago resident, Brian Wharton, yoga instructor, has written a letter to Illinois Senator Dick Durbin asking that music, DVDs, and images of 60+ rockers be labeled as "Parental Advisory: Apoplectic Content."
"There has to be some way for kids to know what kind of music is safe for their parents to listen to, and which movies won't set them up to engage in dangerous, youthful behavior," said Wharton. "You can imagine the shock I got when I found Mom and Dad watching the DVD of Iggy Pop and the Stooges Living in Detroit 2003! I tried to warn them that with their blood pressure, they'd be dead in no time if they lived just one day of Iggy Pop's life, but they just turned the TV up louder."
"They have a lot of hearing problems," he added.
Others, while cautionary, do not see the wrinkled and troglodytic gods of rock as dangerous or even controversial, instead calling them a passing fad that will leave no lasting consequences on the lives of fans.
"It's okay if they're into that stuff, but it's nothing to emulate," said cultural historian Robert Broadhurst of Ithaca College. "I predict that once this trend ends, our parents will realize the multiple paternity suits, on-stage mastication, untenable drug addictions and rehab stints of their former heroes are not 'the bee's knees' after all, and rock 'n' roll will be no more."
Broadhurst did express concern over his father who, he says, impetuously bought an RV and plans to take him and his wife on the road trip they always wanted to go on. "I have to wonder if it isn't that Willie Nelson DVD I bought him for Christmas that brought this on," he said.
Health experts continue to remind the public that more rock stars have died of heart attacks induced by cocaine overdoses than by old age. Even the Surgeon General, Steven Galson, explained that as long as your parents are imitating the current domesticated Ozzie Osborn, and not the version who snorted lines of live ants, then their health is not necessarily at risk.
