<p>As a college student, I’ve always thought I’m going to raise any of my kids on super artsy/intellectual/hipster/avant-garde music. Is this feasible?</p>
<p>You can play whatever music you want in your house. Your kids will choose what they want to listen to when they can access an iTunes account. </p>
<p>One thing that is a real education for a parent is that it turns out children are their own people!!! While you can control the environment they live in, you can’t control who they become. You do your best and get pulled along on the ride as they morph themselves into whatever adult they were meant to be…</p>
<p>I really have to agree with what ihs76 said. </p>
<p>When my kids were growing up, we had “dinner and a movie” at home almost every Tuesday night. We took turns choosing the movies*, so we had a pretty good mix of things. We didn’t all always love everyone else’s choices, but we did get to see a great variety of things, and I found myself enjoying films I never would have chosen. As ihs76 put it, I got “pulled along on the ride” and expanded my own horizons.</p>
<ul>
<li>My only restriction was no horror movies. I have nightmares!</li>
</ul>
<p>My kids and their friends found all kinds of old music, bands, plays, books, movies on their own and with their friends. I think they have had much more diverse exposure (and varied interests in these things) than I did at their age. Gotta love classics!</p>
<p>And as others have said, kids are their own people. I think when I was young I blissfully thought I could just do x, y and z and raise children to be a certain way I envisioned. But then I quickly realized they have their own free will, and strong opinions and interests about things that differ at times from my own! I think it started when my first 2 or 3 year old decided she was not going to wear some of the cute outfits I picked out for her and her taste in clothing did not match mine :)</p>
<p>When D was born we listened to everything from Bach to the Beastie Boys. That’s because we loved pop culture and high culture. I took her to galleries and museums because I studied and loved art. By the time she was 8 she had traveled to Rome, Paris, and Berlin. If you have a genuine interest in the arts, you will impart it to your kids, but you can’t decide that you want to impose some sort of cultural agenda on them. They will take to what strikes there fancy. She is now a working Opera singer with a love for a broad range of music and art (And she plays a mean guitar.)
None of this was “planned”.</p>
<p>H and I are movie buffs, so we regularly had movie nights where the rule was that the kids had to watch for the first half hour. If they hated it, they were then free to leave the room. They stayed 90% of the time (even when the movies were in old fogy black and white.) And when they were very small, I never played children’s music in the car - instead it was The Beatles, Paul Simon, etc., music that they now, as adults, listen to on their own. We had less success with classical music, but hey, at least they know who Bach, Mozart and Beethoven are.</p>
<p>I think it’s very important to expose children to these things - some of it will stick, and even if they don’t particularly like it, as least they’ll have a certain level of cultural literacy.</p>
<p>I have a friend whose son is not allowed to read popular literature. He must only read great books. He’s now in 11th grade and has never cracked open a Harry Potter. I feel a little sad for him. He’s completely missing out on one of the biggest cultural phenoms of his generation.</p>
<p>I always hoped that my child would have an interest and talent in music. Exposed him to it, went to museums/shows/concerts. Played music around the house. He loves music, and whistles some of the most beautiful tunes with perfect pitch. But he likes Screemo music (yuck). I am hoping his taste improves as he gets older! He is a computer/math geek. No music majors for him.</p>
<p>I raised my son to be his own person. Yes, I exposed him to high art and the like but one of the best parts of being a parent, in my opinion, is that now my son recommends musical artists and authors to me. </p>
<p>I wanted him to be open-minded, which I believe he is, but he’s also opened my mind. Very cool.</p>
<p>I have taught a class called Video Production for 20 years. It became apparent that students didn’t have much in the way of cultural literacy. So now along with basic shots and editing, we delve into the original horror classics and basic classics. There are students out there that haven’t seen The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, and others. I’ve seen Citizen Kane over 35 times over the years, but for most high school students, it’s their first time!</p>
<p>AHSteacher, I took a course in college called “Fiction into Film”, I loved it, and would love to find a course like that for my son. We did the same type thing…read the origional book, then watched the origional film…compared/contrast/ and I learned much about both literature and film!</p>
<p>I made sure my daughters have watched all my cultural icons - Attack of the Killer Tomatos, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Born in East LA, and so on We absolutely enjoy classics like movie parodies (Dating Movie, Meet The Spartans, etc)</p>
<p>Art wise, we’ve done a lot of art focused vacations and both girls have a solid appreciation of the arts - visual and performing. Both are longtime music students but despite intensive care music therapy my older one still prefers Hip Hop and the occasional Death Metal; my younger one prefers my progressive rock stuff for now.</p>
<p>For me, it is about exposing them to it, and then letting them make their own choices.</p>
<p>I am a voracious reader; my kids were in Honors and AP English, but really never have had a love of reading.</p>
<p>I love classic and independent films. We would watch them as a family all the time. They would consistently groan at the thought of another one of Mom’s wacky British films. However, my DS loves horror and adventure movies. My DD is into romance movies.</p>
<p>I love art of all kinds. We would take them to art shows, galleries, etc. As they got older, we were able to have more intelligent discussions about it, but they would never choose to do this on their own.</p>
<p>I love gourmet and international foods. I don’t think they have realized how much exposure to different foods they have had.</p>
<p>Now that my DS is a freshman, and my DD is 2 years away from college, I am looking forward to see whether any of this wears off on them!</p>
<p>I exposed my kids to both high and low art. The oldest won’t step into an art museum, doesn’t listen to any classical music, hates fancy food and doesn’t really like movies. Thankfully the younger one is his polar opposite or I’d feel like a failure as a parent!</p>
<p>PS (re #15)My sil gave us Attack of the Killer Tomatoes one year for Christmas, none of us could get through more than the first 15 minutes!</p>
<p>Is my son an art history major because my ex and I started taking him to the Met and other museums when he was a toddler, with him in a backpack so he could see over my shoulder and look at the paintings and comment on them? Who knows? But he certainly enjoyed it, from the very beginning, and developed the same love for museums I’ve had since my paternal grandmother used to take me to the Met all the time in my childhood. (She lived on 79th Street, so it wasn’t a long walk from her apartment. She told me once that she had first visited the Met herself around 1905, when she moved to New York City after graduating from Syracuse High School.)</p>
<p>DS has always endlessly complained about my choice of radio station in the car (NPR). I always said when he drove his own car he could pick the station. He is now 16, and has his own car. When I drove it the other day, I noticed that the second saved station was…NPR (after sports radio). That left a big smile on my face all day.</p>
We absolutely enjoy classics like movie parodies (Dating Movie, Meet The Spartans, etc)</p>