Take it from me, parents just do understand
The parents in 'Parents Just Don't Understand' were right about everything ... until the violence
My kids are 8, and thanks to the power of The Algorithm they like “Parents Just Don't Understand” by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, a song that was popular in 1988 – 27 years before they were born.
Because they listen to it a lot, I listen it a lot.
If you have young kids, you know they can hear the same song over and over without getting bored. I think this is for two reasons: 1.) Music is powerful and new to them, and when you're little you realize (and later take for granted) that poetry combined with harmony is magic 2.) Kids don't know much about the world yet, and songs give them adult information. New music, for a kid, is magic plus forbidden knowledge, an irresistible combination.
Because I have to listen to “Parents Just Don't Understand” over and over, and because I normalized magic and forbidden knowledge vibrating out of my car's speakers long ago, I listen with different ears than my kids. I'm analyzing the song constantly. This exercise in maintaining the tattered shreds of my sanity is how I came to conclude that in the song “Parents Just Don't Understand,” it is actually THE KID who does not understand.
Let's do this.
You know parents are the same no matter time nor place
They don't understand that us kids are gonna make some mistakes
So to you other kids all across the land
There's no need to argue, parents just don't understand
First off, Fresh Prince, no one understands that “kids are going to make some mistakes” better than parents. We watch kids make mistakes all the time. It's our whole life. For years.
I have one child who shall remain unnamed who struggles to transfer the food on their plate to their mouth without getting some significant percentage of blueberry muffin on the floor. Seeing this play out daily does not raise my expectations for perfection – it lowers them significantly. My priors are that they ONLY make mistakes. A rare burst of competence gets a high-five. When they do screw up to the point of me having to say something, it means their error is so far beyond the usual bounds of incompetence THAT I HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT. If I'm dealing with it, you can assume I already know kids will “make some mistakes,” and I'm intervening because I don't want those mistakes to turn into costly medical bills.
As for the “no need to argue” repeated throughout this song, I think deep down Fresh Prince knows he doesn't have much of a leg to stand on. Rather than invite a debate he knows he may lose, he tells the listener to accept his premise unquestioningly. This is not someone making a good faith argument.
I remember one year
My mom took me school shoppin'
It was me, my brother, my mom, oh, my pop, and my little sister
All hopped in the car
We headed downtown to the Gallery Mall
My mom started buggin' with the clothes she chose
I didn't say nothin' at first
I just turned up my nose
She said, “What's wrong? This shirt cost $20”
I said, “Mom, this shirt is plaid with a butterfly collar!”
Whoa, whoa, whoa right there, Fresh Prince – that's a cool retro stylish type of shirt. Your mom has good taste. The high school kids love the retro. Instead of saying, “Thanks, mom, for all of the making out this shirt will lead to at Make Out Point,” he complains that his mom is not letting him dress exactly like all of his other dullard classmates who were probably wearing Izods tucked into acid wash jeans HONESTLY WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS GUY?!
The next half hour was the same old thing
My mother buying me clothes from 1963
And then she lost her mind and did the ultimate
I asked her for Adidas and she bought me Zips!
I said, “Mom, what are you doin'? you're ruinin' my rep”
She said, “You're only sixteen, you don't have a rep yet”
I said, “Mom, let's put these clothes back, please”
She said “No, you go to school to learn, not for a fashion show”
I said, “This isn't Sha Na Na, come on Mom, I'm not Bowzer
Mom, please put back the bell-bottom Brady Bunch trousers
But if you don't want to I can live with that but
You gotta put back the double-knit reversible slacks”
Look at these slacks. Look at them. The year 1963 was a high-water mark for fashion. This song shouldn't be called “Parents Just Don't Understand.” It should be called, “I Don't Understand Fashion, But My Mom Does, And I'm Being a Big Baby About It.”
She wasn't moved, everything stayed the same
Inevitably the first day of school came
I thought I could get over, I tried to play sick
But my mom said, “No, no way, uh-uh, forget it”
There was nothin' I could do, I tried to relax
I got dressed up in those ancient artifacts
And when I walked into school, it was just as I thought
The kids were crackin' up, laughin' at the clothes Mom bought
And those who weren't laughin' still had a ball
Because they were pointing and whispering
As I walked down the hall
I got home and told my Mom how my day went
She said, “If they were laughin', you don't need them
'Cause they're not good friends”
She's right. Abso-freaking-lutely right. Real friends don't do that. If you walk around town dressed like Katt Williams, and people laugh, those people are nimrods. No one should adjust their self-esteem based on the reactions of nimrods. Mom gets it. What ought to worry you, Fresh Prince, is when nimrods like what you wear. That would actually be concerning because it means your so-called fashion sense reflects the tastes of the lowest rung.
For the next six hours I tried to explain to my Mom
That I was gonna have to go through this about 200 more times
So to you all the kids all across the land
There's no need to argue
Parents just don't understand
Now Fresh Prince is just contradicting himself. If there's no need to argue, why spend six hours arguing? His teen logic is falling apart, but that's to be expected from a song that spends most of its verse structure focused on having a meltdown at the mall.
Okay, here's the situation
My parents went away on a week's vacation and
They left the keys to the brand new Porsche
Would they mind?
Umm, well, of course not
I'll just take it for a little spin
And maybe show it off to a couple of friends
I'll just cruise it around the neighborhood
Well, maybe I shouldn't
Yeah, of course, I should
Pay attention, here's the thick of the plot
I pulled up to the corner at the end of my block
That's when I saw this beautiful girlie girl walkin'
I picked up my car phone to perpetrate like I was talkin'
This song can only be redeemed if you view it as a classic tale of two parents working hard to achieve generational wealth only to leave that wealth behind to a spoiled child who will ultimately dishonor their legacy.
You should've seen this girl's bodily dimensions
I honked my horn just to get her attention
She said, “Was that for me?”
I said, “Yeah”
She said, “Why?”
I said, “Come on and take a ride with a helluva guy”
She said, “How do I know you're not sick?
You could be some deranged lunatic”
I said, “C'mon, toots, my name is the Prince
Besides, would a lunatic have a Porsche like this?”
Toots. He called her toots. I have this vision now of his childhood – the parents run a business. They're working seven days a week on the American dream. I've decided they own a chain of auto body repair shops. It demands all their attention because of having to deal with the paperwork and insurance companies plus all the sensible environmental regulations, and as a result they have failed to invest quality time into their son.
Left to his own devices, the kid hangs out with the aforementioned nimrods. (Maybe he even gets in one little fight and his mom gets scared, and he moves in with his auntie and uncle in Bel-Air. It's plausible.)
The parents were, until this point in the song, reasonable people – but somewhere it went wrong for them. It was when they opened the fourth repair shop. The one on Elmwood. They didn't need the money, but they wanted to be the top auto body repair chain on the west side. At last, we're beginning to see some legitimate roots of Fresh Prince's unhappiness.
She agreed and we were on our way
She was looking very good and so was I, I must say - word
We hit McDonald's, pulled into the drive
We ordered two Big Macs and two large fries with Cokes
If you're driving a Porsche, and you take your lady guest to McDonald's, and she does not question why you took her to a clown restaurant, that's your first sign she's (spoiler alert) 12.
She kicked her shoes off onto the floor
She said, “Drive fast, speed turns me on”
She put her hand on my knee, I put my foot on the gas
We almost got whiplash, I took off so fast
The sunroof was open, the music was high
And this girl's hand was steadily moving up my thigh
She had opened up three buttons on her shirt so far
I guess that's why I didn't notice that police car
We're doin' ninety in my Mom's new Porsche
And to make this long story short - short
When the cop pulled me over I was scared as hell
I said, “I don't have a license, but I drive very well, officer”
I almost had a heart attack that day
Come to find out the girl was a twelve-year-old runaway
She's walking around alone, she gets in a car with a charmless stranger who calls her toots, she's starving and will eat anything – how many more signs did he need that she was a runaway FOR CRYING OUT PETE?!
I was arrested, the car was impounded
There was no way for me to avoid being grounded
My parents had to come off from vacation to get me
I'd rather be in jail than to have my father hit me
And this is where the song takes an even darker turn. I am Team Parents until the beatings begin. This is where they lose me. Can't hit your kids. Can't do it. Also, if you know your son lacks common sense, which is well-established at this point, then you don't vacation for a week and leave him the keys to your high-performance vehicle. The parents deserve criticism – there are in fact things they clearly “do not understand” – but they’re not the surface-level criticisms obsessed over by Fresh Prince.
My parents walked in
I got my grip, I said, “Ah, Mom, Dad, how was your trip?”
They didn't speak - I said, “I wanna plead my case”
But my father just shoved me in the car by my face
That was a hard ride home, I don't know how I survived
They took turns - one would beat me while the other was driving
I can't believe it, I just made a mistake
Well parents are the same no matter time nor place
So to you other kids all across the land
Take it from me, parents just don't understand
Parents are, in fact, not the same. If it was my kid, I'd spend that car ride home wondering what I had done wrong as a parent. When did we lose him? How many auto body repair shops do we need to own on the west side before we realize the real repair work we need to do in this family is with our interpersonal relationships? Did we do it all for our kid and lose him in the process? Can we get him back? We’re running out of time.
Parents just do understand?
Nah, kid.
We understand.
We understand all too well.
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