Good Old Fashioned Quality Father/Daughter Bonding Time

by Kevin Jarrell (DYMRIP)
(Ohio)

My name is Kevin. I'm 27 and I live in Ohio. My daughter Nichole just turned ten (yes her mother and I were very young when Nichole was born. We were still in high school). Being a young father, it's pretty hard to know how to do it right all the time. It's especially hard to find ways to bond with a girl of her age, considering she likes girly things and I grew up on horror movies and heavy metal!

So how does a horror/metal fan find things in common with a ten year old pop music/teen Disney fan? Well turns out my daughter is a little more like her old man that I thought. When one day my daughter came to me and told me her mom had forbid her to watch a scary movie, and she really wanted to see it! Well Nichole lives with me full time, and her mother isn't always around, and I figured 'Hey I grew up on horror and nothing bad happened to me!' And my parents were devout Christians and they would even watch horror movies with me. Because they knew they had taught me the difference in right and wrong, and I was smart enough to separate real life from fiction. So I sat down with Nichole and watched the Amityville Horror (2005) remake. She loved it. And while she did get scared, and a few nights was a little too freaked out to walk to the bathroom without me following her and promising to wait outside the door until she came back out, she quickly got over her fear of the movie. After that she even began going to bed on her own (whereas before she would fall asleep on the couch and I'd have to carry her to her room a while later). She said after getting over her fear of the movie that being scared of the dark and the 'boogey man under the bed' just seemed silly.

People say violent video games and movies and metal music is bad for American's Youth. Well in my daughter's case horror movies:

A. Helped her get over her fear of the dark and the 'boogeyman'.
B. Gave Nichole and me something in common to enjoy together.

I threw the heavy metal into this story because I also play in a heavy metal band. It's actually a band I grew up idolizing, and I now have been lucky enough to join up with them some 10 years later since the first time I heard them and fell in love with heavy freakin metal! My first show out with them (which was by far the most people I've ever seen out in the crowd when I was on stage) was an all ages show. My daughter has always wanted to see her old man play with one of his bands. Her mother brought her out to the show and she had a blast. Now I had them a special V.I.P. table far away from the mosh pit and beer swilling crowd, but once again something generally frowned upon by a lot of people served as a positive thing and helped me and my daughter bond and share a truly unique experience. My band by the way, called Cryptkicker, are all horror fans and our stage show usually consists of tombstones, zombies, ghouls, demons, cemetery gates, coffins, and many other horror props, which are all made by our bassist. So heavy metal/horror fans reading this be sure to check us out. Cryptkicker.net

Well thanks for reading (if you made it through this novel haha). And let's all do our part to change the negative reputation unfairly given to horror, heavy metal, and all that fun stuff!