Column: How not to talk to your kids about Aquanet and '80s music

This is where I got in trouble - searching for videos with the kids watching over my shoulder. Somewhere in the search results, the word “Cinderella” came up, and Zoe said “what’s that?” before I could scroll past. Naturally, it was video for the ‘80s hair metal band, Cinderella, who you may remember from such hits as “Nobody’s Fool” - which sounds like every other ‘80s hair metal ballad, as I was reminded when my kids made me click the link.

I protested that we didn’t need to see it, that Cinderella was awful, and that I was going to be very upset if I clicked and got “Nobody’s Fool” stuck in my head. But they were adamant, and pretty effective arguers besides: “At least let us see how bad it is.” (Well OK, I thought -- maybe it will be educational!)

They loved it.

Imagine how unpleasant it was for me to type that last sentence. But of course that's where this story was inevitably headed, right? If they had heard the boring beat, the inane guitar line, the appalling screechy-whiny vocals, and said, "Ew!" then there wouldn't be much of a story here.

They loved it. I should have known, because they are contrarians. If I suggest to Zoe she would like a book, she refuses to read it. If I tell Jocelyn that dipping carrots in milk is probably not the ideal way to eat them, she insists they're delicious. So I had almost cornered them by insisting that Cinderella was awful; how could they agree? Especially since the band is called Cinderella. They've learned by now that Dad can hardly be trusted to see rightly when it comes to princess-related issues.

The girls put the impetus back on me: "Dad, why don't you like this?" I had to defend my position. I pointed out the aforementioned problems. For instance, the vocals. But then, I subject the kids' ears to everything from Dead Kennedys to death metal, so I'm on shaky ground there. Also, the drearily unimaginative music. But that's tricky for a 6- and 9-year-old to get an immediate handle on. So I found myself arguing uphill.

I found myself starting to say, Look at them. Don't they look silly?

And the answer is Yes! Yes they do. But I got the feeling, then, that I had chosen a dangerous angle of approach. And I sidestepped by shifting the focus toward their mannerisms, their seriously pouty facial expressions, the singer's schmaltzy hand gestures. Legitimate complaints. Like most proponents of the hair metal genre, Cinderella are absolutely hammy.

But thinking back to the hair metal backlash of the late '80s, what I remember everyone bagging on is the hair, makeup and clothes. Hair metal bands made some of the worst music I've ever heard, it's true -- but so much complaining about them has come because they were men who "looked girly." And when I first began to mention their "look" to my daughters, maybe that's what I impulsively had in mind. Maybe that's what my daughters first picked up on. And both sides of that worry me.

Part of what I wonder is ... why should boys dressing as girls strike me as objectionable? I am all for gender bending. I believe drag is honorable. I think I might enjoy going out in drag myself on occasion if I had any idea where to find pumps in a men's 13. Do I want to tell my daughters that hair bands suck because they're boys dressed as girls? Gadzooks no.

But isn't that what we were bothered by all along, I wonder? But then I think, nah, it can't be - after all, the macho-est jocks at my high school were all into Whitesnake and Poison. So what gives?

Drag queens themselves don't exactly flock to hair metal bands. Why is that? Because the music is so dire? Or perhaps because these pretenders were so haphazard and clueless about fashion that they never came close to looking like actual women? Or because of what they stood for in their songs and videos, the whole groupie-mongering mentality? Is it the way they dressed up girly to appeal to girls, rather than to men? And is that about reinforcing gender paradigms, or breaking them, or both? I find myself in confusing territory here.

So what do I say now to my girls? Do I need to re-examine hair metal, consider it in some possibly coded revolutionary fashion? Was there anything good about it, or is it truly the most hideous musical concoction in the history of earth, as I've suspected?

And how do I make it clear to my daughters why I loathe this music, while also honoring the possibilities of cross-dressing and gender-bending? Of more broadly opposing/transgressing gendered borders?

Are the deeper, trickier aspects of this a conversation for now, or later? And if I say later, am I just being a coward? How will I know when Later becomes Now? Is this the road by which parents fail to talk with their children?

Scott Beal is a stay-at-home dad who plays music in public once in a while.