My mother heard the music I played on the radio in my room, which was quite different from what she played in her own teen years. The Beach Boys and the Everly Brothers, and Elvis did not strike the same chord in her as did the big bands of the ‘30s and ‘40s and their crooners like Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. At first, she managed the tension by shutting my bedroom door when rock and roll spilled out into her space. Mom was a kind woman; hence her criticism was soft and warm.

“Ya know, Jim,” she said, “the music of the big bands will never go out of style like rock and roll will.” My doo-wop sensibilities smiled at the absurdity, and when her back was turned, cringed at the possibility. She never grew to recognize the names of Arlo Guthrie, Crosby Stills and Nash, and The Grateful Dead. Just to prove the old adage, “There is nothing new under the sun,” (see Ecclesiastes 1:9) today the names on the pop charts are as familiar to me as the names of the parliamentarians of Leichtenstein.

In my defense, as a grandparent newbie, I can claim creditable intergenerational skills. I became acquainted with Dora the Explorer, newer characters on Sesame Street, Spiderman, and the phalanx of Disney princesses. When your preschooler dons a toilet paper-fashioned tiara and a magic wand transformed from a recently amputated Barbie leg, you learn quickly about foreign things and that ignorance and critique are unwelcome. Little ones waltzing in fairyland lace and satin with eyes focuses firmly on a distant castle are not to be trifled with.

In addition, mistaking Snow White for Sleeping Beauty or confusing their respective gowns might get you discarded on the landfill of all things clueless. It was not long, however, before I became clueless enough to find conversation as difficult as conversing with a person whose language you do not know, although, presently I know who Taylor Swift is and how her singing voice sounds. I once knew all about Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, Mouseketeer Annette, (dreaming I was Mouseketeer Bobby holding her hand as we sang together), and mountaineer Davy Crocket taming the North American wilderness in his coonskin cap. The generations gather their own music and myths. Is it any wonder that conversing proves difficult between them?

I suspect that at their core music and myths the generations choose are not so different. Their warp and weft may be different, but they all are born from the heart and mind of the human experiment. Our exploration stops short of the music made before the creation of musical scores and recording devices, but because of the miracle of written language exploring myth is easier. Myths that survive reveal truth and those that promote lie as truth die a merited death. Our myths tell us something about ourselves and our world, and when they don’t, they are cast onto the bonfire of falsehood.

The popular trend to discount myth as fantasy unworthy of consideration throws the baby out with the bath water. The tortoise may not have actually outrun the hare, but truth – slow and steady wins the race – is there, nonetheless. Maybe George Washington didn’t really confess to the youthful cutting down of the family cherry tree, but the myth roots in the reality of the man’s character. Maybe Adam and Eve were not literal human beings but their story transports a truckload of truth about intent driving creation instead of accident, order instead of chaos. Myths give us clues to the movements of the human mind, heart, values, and dreams that drive us. In my iconoclastic youth, myth was the dragon to truth’s Lancelot bravery. I still grow weary of the steady comic book antics of superpower Greek gods and goddesses, but now I’m sure that myth is reality no less than the products of the scientific method.

If Pecos Bill, religion, Aesop’s Fables, and Johnny Appleseed are to be labelled poppycock, so we must treat almost-a-big-girl’s Disney princess collection. A Cinderella obsession might lead to an unhealthy dependence on appearance and indulgence. Miming Spiderman might lead to fatal falls into metropolitan canyons from “Spidey’s” web fails. True myths may not comprise fact as we have come to understand it, but they can teach right and wrong and develop a yen for justice to replace injustice.

Sometimes our fantasylands hinder the human venture. But to discard them as rotten or down right toxic like abandoned corral boots from the last century denies us access to healthy values and self-awareness bequeathed us by ancestors. We only hurt ourselves when we sentence them to the dusty shelves of long forgotten mistakes.