I Mosh with My Parents Valerie Ruberto

Moshing - the arm flailing, leg kicking dancing that happens at hardcore concerts. And I mosh with my parents, of all people. As you can imagine, they weren’t too keen on the idea of their 13-year-old daughter “turning emo”. I developed a love for hardcore music because of its surprisingly poetic lyrics, dramatic guitar, and upbeat drums. All my parents could hear were the angry screams of tattooed men with facial piercings

Luckily, I was raised in a family where logical debates were encouraged. I printed out the lyrics of some of my favorite hardcore songs and showed them to my parents. They realized that the songs they assumed were full of bad messages were actually full of positive messages about being true to yourself. They agreed to give the hardcore music scene a try and went to Warped Tour with me. Mom wore black eyeliner and dad wore a Green Day t-shirt so they could “embrace the style” of their fellow concert goers. From the first note, I started moshing.

Upon seeing how much I was enjoying myself, my parents decided to join me and were hooked. They downloaded some of the music they heard onto their iPods as soon as we got home. We have gone to dozens of concerts together since then, and have debated about as many...