Mary Kennedy Dead

Why Are My Children Rebelling? I am a mother of three (soon to be four!) children. My oldest is a 16 year old son, then 14 year old twin girls. They were all homeschooled up until this year when my husband lost his job and we had to move into an apartment and I had to get a job along with my husband looking for another job. So we had to send our kids to the local public school. My oldest is in the 11th grade. And our girls went to 8th grade.
Now, we are a very religious Baptist Christian family, and our daughters are not allowed to wear skirts or dresses that are exposing the knee and are not permitted to wear shorts or pants at all. No jeans or tight pants for our boy, and no “sagging”. T-shirts are also not permitted for either. The girls’ wardrobe consists of khaki and dressy skirts, modest dresses, polos (all buttons done up and collar down), modest blouses, pearl jewelry, and modest flats. The boy’s consists of khaki pants, polos, dress shirts, and polished dress shoes. They are not permitted to wear makeup. Both of our girls, at the beginning of the year, had very long curly hair so that they could almost sit on it. It was parted in the middle and naturally brown. Our boy had short and neatly combed and parted hair, again naturally brown. They were all wonderful children, but about a month ago they all started rebelling.
First, my son Kenneth refuses to get haircuts as well as refusing to brush his hair. Then my daughter Mary comes home from school with her hair cut to her shoulders and parted on the side with bangs. Then I catch my other daughter Genevieve sitting outside our building talking to a boy! This boy looked about 15 and had messy hair with long bangs and was wearing dark blue cargo shorts, a tight black t-shirt that said “blink-182” on it, large and bulky-looking skate shoes, big black things in his ear shaped like circles, and a black and white studded cuff on his wrist. It gets worse.
Mary made some…interesting new friends at school and she asked if she could go out to a party with them. My answer was a firm no. Later that night, I was reading in bed and waiting for my husband to get home and I heard the door slam. I got up and, seeing that my husband was not home, checked the kids’ rooms. All of my children were gone.
They got home sometime that night and I woke up and saw them all in the kitchen, chatting about whatever went on the previous night. Mary was wearing black eyeliner and had a large purple bow in her hair. She had, however, changed into her nightgown. Genevieve had on baggy black cargo shorts that went down to her knees, a t-shirt that said “NoFX” across it, a bunch of colored little bracelets on her wrists, a studded cuff around her ankle, and was wearing dirty, beat up black low top converse; her eye makeup was dark like her sister’s but without the neon eyeshadow. My son was sporting black and red hair, subtle black eyeliner, a white dress shirt, black skinny tie, a black vest, and tight black jeans covered in chains. He was wearing black and white checkered slip on shoes without socks.
Then Genevieve came out with bangs and layers cut into her hair. It also looked like she had somehow bleached blonde into her bangs and straightened her hair. I was furious! That following Monday, I looked through their rooms before I went to work (the boy has his own room and the girls share one). I looked through the computer they share and found many counts of unacceptable music under each of their music files. Under Kenneth, my son’s, I found bands such as The Cure, Korn, The Cult, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, and Rites of Spring. Mary had bands such as Black Veil Brides, Blood On The Dance Floor, Jeffree Star, I Set My Friends On Fire, Bring Me The Horizon, and Brokencyde. Genevieve had music such as blink-182, NoFX, Sum 41, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Green Day, The Ramones, The Dead Kennedys, Minor Threat, and Rancid. All of this music is unacceptable, as it is all Satanic and poisonous to young minds such as theirs. And in Genevieve’s, I found dark, ripped, tight jeans; v-neck t-shirts; converse; vans; t-shirts with bands such as Rancid, a hair straightener and hairspray; and eyeliner! Mary had jeans, Hello Kitty jewelry, shirts with those vulgar bands she listens to on them, converse, neon ballet flats, shirts with skulls and robots, mini skirts, and many unacceptable t-shirts. I found no bottoms that weren’t denim! And as for my son, everything at the back of his closet (where they all hid their clothes) was either black, white, or red. He adorned everything with chains and safety pins, with the occasional Cure t-shirt. He had large skate shoes and a pair of combat boots. I also found piercing needles and tongue jewelry!
I also went through their texts and they’re all dating someone! What’s wrong with my kids and how do I fix them?

Will You Boycott These Liberal Bands? Alice in Chains, Audioslave, Babes in Toyland, Joan Baez, Beastie Boys, The Beatles, Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, Bikini Kill, Bjork, Black Crowes, Black Flag, Mary J. Blige, Blink 182, Blur, Jeff Buckley, David Byrne, Johhny Cash, Roseanne Cash, Coldplay, Judy Collins, Cowboy Junkies, The Cranberries, Sheryl Crowe, Dave Matthews Band, Dead Kennedys, Dixie Chicks, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, The Eagles, Melissa Etheridge, Everclear, Everlast, Faith No More, Filter, Fishbone, Foo Fighters (formerly Nirvana), Stone Fox, Fugazi, Peter Gabriel, Garbage, Godsmack, Green Day,, Juliana Hatfield, Sophie B. Hawkins, Helmet, Hole, Indigo Girls, Janes Addiction, Joan Jett, Jewell, Lead Zeppelin, Letters to Cleo, Limp Biscuit, Living Colour, Massive Attack, Madonna, Marroon 5, John Mayer, Mekons, Sarah McLaughlin, Natalie Merchant, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Graham Nash, Nine Inch Nails, No Doubt, Oasis, The Offspring, Sinead O’Connor, Pearl Jam, Phish, B-52s, Iggy Pop, Posum Dixon, Presidents of the United States of America, Primus, Public Enemy, Queens of the Stone Age, Radiohead, R.E.M., Rage Against the Machine, Rancid, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rolling Stones, Peter, Paul and Mary, Sixpence None The Richer, Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, Soul Asylum, Soundgarden, Bruce Sprinsteen, Stone Temple Pilots, Barbra Streisand, The Strokes, System of the Down, James Taylor, 311, Tool, U2, Velvet Revolver, Weezer, White Stripes, Neil Young.

more to come.

Do You Ever Wonder If They’ll Find The Body (c/c)? The Great Jimmy Hoffa Scavenger Hunt

His voice still ghosts as angry static
over the twisted
pair of copper phone lines. You only see
an empty Green Pontiac,
an open driver’s door.
Yet, the steel drums remain full
of possibility, rusting
sentinels in Jersey City landfills. You imagine
Giants Stadium could frame his bones—
as if he cared for childish pursuits
played by that pussy Bobby Kennedy.

We do not see his tears
bleed from statues,
or his face form in a clump
of mashed potatoes, and mistake him
for Abraham Lincoln, or Jesus,
or David Cassidy—as if any of them ascended
from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox.

This is no skin-scraping, finger-bone-divining séance.
There is no tap we wait to hear.
If you must look to the dead for guidance,
ask Mary Jo, the drowned girl,
to write her prophecy in the grease
trap drippings scrawling
with her limp finger:

That which is dead
will not remain so.
That which is buried
will rise.