I think my parents are pretty awesome. There's a hundred reasons why, but one of the biggies is the music they introduced me to as a kid. My dad owned a record shop for the 1st decade or so my parents were married, then they opened a music t-shirt/poster mail order business around the time I was born. Music is super important to both of them, and they made sure it would be to me, too. I could probably buy one record a day for my entire life, and wouldn't come close to matching my dad's collection.
I remember when I was around 8 or 9 I was singing along to a Peter Murphy song (the lyrics of which I only understand now, as a grown up) and my mom apologized to me in advance for exposing me to that kind of stuff. "When you're an adult, you are going to hate us," she said. That might have been true if they hadn't also been busy making me into a progressive open-minded person who'd totally play the same music for her own kids.
When I was about 13 I became interested in older music (Sinatra, Crosby, etc.) and never really listened to the songs I'd loved as a kid, except on road trips when my parents would make mix-tapes for the car. It was only recently, within the last six months or so, that I finally started listening and appreciating their tastes in music again. Not only are the songs little trips down memory lane, but I'm really enjoying exchanging youtube links with my dad, who, needless to say, is beyond thrilled that I'm listening to his favorite music again (except T-Rex. I just can't get into them..) and keeps sending me songs I might like! :)
When I have kids, they're going to be little music aficionados who sing inappropriate lyrics and hopefully they won't grow up to hate me for it ;-D
