Girl Dadding in the Taylor Swift Era

Taylor Swift Records and CDs for sale at Target. Photo by Andrew Donaldson

I am told — by the same check marked joyless online scolds who deem themselves arbiters of everything and judges of all — that Taylor Swift is bad for the culture, destroying young impressionable minds, and is a threat to masculinity, femininity, the American way, puppies, Apple Pie, and God himself.

Oh, shut up.

Having been a girl dad for all the 2006-to-present period of time in which Taylor Swift the performer and artist, her music and cultural impact are undeniable. Currently in the middle of the record-setting Eras Tour, with yet another album due out next month, and her quest to re-record her studio albums well in hand, Swift is pretty much the biggest thing going in music. While sitting in my local theater and watching my youngest sing along to every song in the Eras Tour movie, which Swift released directly to theaters in yet another money printing business move, internet scolds were the furthest thing from my mind. Watching my 16-year-old enjoy the music that directly parallels her own lifespan was just all joy and no critical thinking or analysis. To her, she’s never lived in a world without Taylor Swift soundtracking whatever was going on.

And before you worry about some kind of unhealthy fandom thing, my youngest’s other favorite artist besides Tay Tay is 70s rockers Blue Öyster Cult, so calm yourself. When it isn’t Taylor, she’s going rock, punk, and hip hop, well rounded from years of car riding with her father’s eclectic and varied musical tastes.

As pop idols and musical heroes go, despite what the folks who make money on engagement try to sell me on, I just don’t see anything objectionable about Taylor Swift to get in a twist about as a parent. Yeah, the newer albums have more language on them, including an F-bomb in the hook of Maroon, which was my preferred song off the Midnights album. Not like they haven’t heard those words before, even though not from me as I try really hard not to curse in general and in front of my family specifically. Yes, she’s a grown woman now whose lyrics of relationships have gone from teardrops on a guitar after school to blouse unbuttoning and various other illusions to frolicking. Thirtysomething women have sex…shocking, to some I know, but accurate and true; deal with it. Sure, Taylor got a little tight at some football games in public while taking a break from the biggest music tour of all time. Grown adults have grown adult beverages at a football game; if this has you clutching your pearls you might not be ready to be in public around sportsball.

My generation at that age dealt with musical things like Aaliyah’s shocking death, only to find out that R. Kelly had her as one more victim — when she was only 15 and maybe younger — on his long list of abused women as the years went by. We had Kurt Cobain’s suicide, a year after Courtney Love’s Hole bassist died from an OD, and the swath of hard-to-watch that has been Courtney Love ever since. Biggie and 2Pac beefed each other into early graves by gunfire. Bradley Nowell OD’d a week after his wedding, a year after the birth of his son, and two months before Sublime‘s self-titled third album became a massive record and yet another cautionary tale. This is in the same time period Shannon Hoon was found dead of in his tour bus bunk from an OD as Blind Melon‘s trippy earworm “No Rain” sold millions of records with Hoon’s trailing fill of “it’s not sane” summing up the waste of it all.

But do tell me again how I’m supposed to get all worked up over the great pernicious evil that is Taylor Swift…show your work and weigh it in the balance against the graveyard of dead and debauched artists us 90s teens dealt with, you midwitted turnips.

And above all else, spare me the “She’s gone POLITICAL” nonsense. What official statements and positions Taylor Swift has gone public with are pretty tame, and unless you live in “anything but what I believe is of SATAN” levels of maturity, perfectly in line with living in a diverse, pluralistic society where folks are free to express their opinions political and otherwise. If Michael Jordan astutely understood that “Republicans buy sneakers too” the tens of thousands of Swifties at the Era’s tour are getting their revelry on with the ballot box being the furthest thing from their minds.

Do you remember what the previous generations did to Sinead O’Connor when she got “political” – and she was proven right in the long run, by the way? We dealt with P Diddy, or Puff Daddy, or whatever Sean Combs was going by at the moment yelling into the MTV screen about “Vote or DIE” which makes Swift’s backstage family council meeting about speaking out against Donald Trump seem downright Presbyterian. “Vote or Die” registered voters and made for some truly top-notch parody; Swift’s political activities and their influence remain to be seen. Both approaches, in the United State of America, are not only permissible but better than the default setting of most folks to politics of ignoring it completely.

Like anyone on the shortlist of artists who find themselves perched atop the cultural zeitgeist for a particular dispensation of time, Taylor Swift isn’t just a reflection of the times and culture but a screen to project the times and culture upon as the biggest star in the land. In a world where engagement is king of all media, Taylor Swift content, good, bad, or indifferent pleasures the algorithms and carnival cries in the clicks better than just about anything else. Once you get right with that fact, you can start to parse through the caterwauling and get to the pros and cons of Taylor Swift, artist, and person. She is well on her way to being an all-timer at the artist part by any measure. That she seems to be a well-functioning hyper-successful human adult while doing it is remarkable and praiseworthy whether you like her music, image, brand, Swifties or not.

Not covered as much but telling, outside the Scooter Braun beef which has all sorts of insider implications, you rarely hear any drama not boyfriend related with Taylor Swift. She keeps a tight circle of friends and family, makes sure plenty inside her orbit are benefiting from her success, and genuinely seems to keep her fans in her processes both musically and business-wise. She has proven, not only in word but action, that she really loves working and creating, a work ethic that is all the more admirable for someone who was a billionaire by 30 years old.

The interweb know-it-alls keep telling anyone who will listen all these negatives about Taylor Swift. When I consider the actual person Taylor Swift, I find their arguments specious. As a parent, I’d much rather go along for the ride and memories with my quickly becoming adult kids, even if that means listening to 1989 (Taylor’s Version) on the latest family road trip instead of my own playlist. Which, by the way, has exactly two Taylor Swift songs on: the aforementioned Maroon and the best of the Taylor Swift catalog in my humble but accurate opinion, Wildest Dreams . We should not listen to the online Taylor Swift naysayers.

I love my kids, my kids love Taylor Swift, I find no legitimate reason to not do so, therefore I listen to Taylor Swift. And Wildest Dreams is a banger. It slaps. Lit. Or something, whatever the kids say these days.

I apologize for nothing.