For what it’s worth, I have a little Tarzan too. It‘s very difficult as a parent to see past the behavior some times, to see the good points. I have an interesting story about doing that, though, that might be relevant:

A couple of months ago I took my children to a concert of Zimbabwean music put on by an ensemble directed by a friend of mine. My youngest son sat transfixed the whole time. My daughter was very self-conscious about being seen to have fun. My middle child (the Tarzan) quickly found a chalkboard to one side of the room (this was in a lecture hall) and started drawing all over it. My initial reaction was to stop him because he wasn’t paying attention, but as I watched, I realized he’d drawn a bunch of horizontal lines (like a music staff) and was making marks on it that imitated the movement of the marimba players’ arms and mallets. Rather than ignoring the music, he was drawing it! In other words, he was reacting to it in a different way (albeit a perfectly valid one) than I expected. Letting him draw all over the chalk board made the music more meaningful to him. If I had let my (internal) stereotype of him—that he is a wild kid in need to discipline—rule the day or if I had gotten too concerned about what others would think of me as a parent for letting him “misbehave,” he would have had a miserable time. Instead he had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the music.

But more to the point, this post has not recieved the attention it deserves, and those who have commented thus far seem to have strayed far from the main point. It does not matter in the Lord’s eyes what we use. What matters is what comes out of it. The list of appropriate options are as follows:

1. Mormon Tabernacle Choir (I despise it when people try to shorten that to be “hip” by calling it “mo tab.” That sounds too much like “Mo Town,” and we all know the dangers in that),
2. Afterglow,
3. anything by Janice Kapp Perry
4. Kenneth Cope (or any other EFY-sponsored artist, as long as they don’t stray in to rock and roll.)
5. Primary Children’s music (sung by real primary children — it is especially cute and heavenly when they strain at the high notes and sing with a slight lisp).

There may be a few that I am leaving out, but no respectable Peter Priesthood or Molly Mormon would listen to anything else, regardless of their stereo type.

I am going to paste two paragraphs here. I have removed the gender-specific pronouns but pretty much kept the rest of the language as is. Can you tell which paragraph is addressed to the women, and which is addressed to the men? Could either paragraph work for either gender given our traditional undertanding (i.e. stereotyping) of gender roles? What sterotypes (if any) are being reinforced here?

Paragraph A

You have been entrusted with the most sacred gift God can give you—someone who has voluntarily given themself to you for love and joyful companionship. Think of the kind things you said when you were courting, think of the two of you as the god and goddess you both inherently are, and then reflect on other moments characterized by cold, caustic, unbridled words. Someone who would never dream of striking physically can break, if not the bones, then certainly the heart by the brutality of thoughtless or unkind speech. Physical abuse is uniformly and unequivocally condemned in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If it is possible to be more condemning than that, we speak even more vigorously against all forms of sexual abuse. Today, I speak against verbal and emotional abuse of anyone against anyone

Paragraph B

What of the unbridled tongue in your mouth, of the power for good or ill in your words? How is it that such a lovely voice which by divine nature is so angelic, so close to the veil, so instinctively gentle and inherently kind could ever in a turn be so shrill, so biting, so acrid and untamed? Your words can be more piercing than any dagger ever forged, and they can drive the people you love to retreat beyond a barrier more distant than anyone in the beginning of that exchange could ever have imagined. There is no place in that magnificent spirit of yours for acerbic or abrasive expression of any kind, including gossip or backbiting or catty remarks. Let it never be said of our home or our ward or our neighborhood that “the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity … [burning] among our members.”