(no subject)

[conuly]

My partner and I have a beautiful 14-month-old boy, Jason. My partner likes music (who doesn’t?), but she also harbors a severe intolerance for children’s music. She refuses to sing, play, or listen to anything but adult songs at home or in the car when our baby is there too. I’m uncomfortable at the idea of Jason being exposed to swear words and non-kid-friendly messages, and I thought this was the strongest angle from which to approach my wife. But when I said this, she looked at me like I was nuts. She said that while she’ll carefully avoid explicit lyrics as Jason learns to talk, there’s nothing wrong with playing “normal music” when a baby is present and there’s no reason to let kids’ music “take over our lives.”

But she’s wrong; Jason’s language acquisition is kicking into high gear right now, and from what I’ve read, basic children’s songs, such as the ABCs, have considerable benefit to childhood development. What I think is happening is that she still has some unresolved issues from growing up: She’s one of the oldest in a big family, and she has previously told me that while she loves her siblings, it was hard for her to be a teen in a house of under-10s she had to babysit almost every day. But now, with her own baby, I’m really surprised that she can’t even find a little tolerance to play the kind of music that will be best for him instead of what she likes. We’re both supposed to make little sacrifices as parents, but how can I open a discussion about changing our playlists to more child-appropriate music with someone who says that “hearing ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ for the millionth time makes me want to tear my ears off”?

—Baby DJ

Dear BDJ,

There are plenty of parents who can’t abide kid music, and to be honest I think you need to pick your battles, because this is not an important one. Of course you are both expected to make sacrifices (both little and big) for the sake of your child, but I don’t think listening to “adult music” is going to hurt your son. Many, many children—including my own, back in the day—are present when their parents play whatever music they’re into, and I’ve never heard of one whose “development” was harmed by it. I think if it’s important to you to make sure he is exposed to plenty of music designed especially for kids, then you can and should do that. Surely the three of you aren’t together all the time? Surely there is some time when you are alone with your son? Play and sing all the ABCs etc. then.

Honestly, this sounds like a power struggle to me. It’s a struggle you need to set aside even as you two (together) figure out what this argument is really about. Do you want to listen to your favorite music (and is this really about music?) and resent that she is doing so while you’re stuck with “Twinkle Twinkle” for the millionth time? Do you feel like the two of you should be suffering through kids’ music together? Do you feel like your partner is making fewer sacrifices than you are—or that she isn’t taking parenting as seriously as you are?

Whatever is going on beneath the surface of this battle, keep in mind that there will be plenty of things that one or another of you will do with your child that the other won’t. My daughter read Bible stories, played basketball, made paintings and collages, and built things with her dad; she played elaborate let’s-pretend games and made up stories and sang through the entire scores of Broadway musicals with me (not an inclusive list, but you get the idea). There will be plenty of important things about which you and your partner will need to be on the same page. This isn’t one of them.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/10/parents-grown-children-boundaries-advice-care-feeding.html

Comments

[conuly]

First-time parents of children who are not yet school-aged can be a little... much... but even with that caveat, this is extra ridiculous. This dude needs to get over himself. In SO many ways.

Also: Did we all stop saying that Mozart is best for babies?

(Not that it matters. What's best for babies is loving parents, a happy home, and a routine.)

[chiasmata]

Where does it say LW is male?

[jadelennox]

LW seems like they spend too much time on parenting boards and also demand exactly the age-appropriate Baby Genius toys and will flip the fuck out if their son isn't speaking in full sentences by a specific date they'll have written in a calendar.

Also, lots of toddlers show up at pre-school with little potty mouths. It's not going to be a problem if it happens. It can be addressed when it needs to be.

[raine]

Not a parent, but I grew up listening to country music (via my dad) and pop music (via my mom). I remember singing "Apartment #9", "American Pie", and "Delta Dawn" without any shed of knowledge of what the words meant until my older brother (ever the bearer of knowledge) told me that they weren't songs for kids to sing. Did our parents care? Not really, because they figured as long as they were safe for the radio to play, they weren't "bad". Context is everything.

[harpers_child]

As someone raised on early punk and new wave, the kid will be fine. (Mom contributed musicals, Chicago, and classical stuff. Dad had control of the turntable most of the time.)

[lilysea]

Any music is suitable for children as long as:

a) it's not so loud that it could damage their hearing

b) it doesn't contain slurs like the n-word or bitch

c) it's not something that them singing out of context could cause people distress and alarm [eg Cabaret or The Producers, both of which contain reference to Nazis and/or Hitler]

d) it doesn't contain graphic references to violence

[ashbet]

Yep. My kid grew up listening to Goth/Industrial, 80’s pop and New Wave, and 90’s grunge. She turned out JUST FINE. And has EXCELLENT taste in music as an adult ;)

(And she was exposed to “children’s music” at daycare, school, and through shows like Sesame Street.)

Not that I didn’t sing some childhood songs to/with her, but I never purchased any recordings of specifically “ children’s music.”

[troisoiseaux]

it doesn't contain graphic references to violence

To be fair, I loved the Beatles song Maxwell's Silver Hammer when I was, like, 5, and only realized what was going on (murder!) years later.

...but I do get your point / am pretty sure that's not the kind of songs you're referring to.

[laurajv]

my elder child's favorite song as a toddler was "Folsom Prison Blues"; the younger child's was Leonard Cohen's "You Want It Darker".

unsurprisingly the elder child is obsessed with trains and the younger one is goth as all hell

[oursin]

This is such a 'modern times' phenomenon! I am An Old, and in My Young Days I think 'Children's Favourites' was one hour on Saturday mornings on one of the BBC channels (and was requests, not necessarily Music Specifically Selected for Kiddiez). 'Listen with Mother' was 15 mins daily during the week with nursery rhymes and stories.

Among the family collection of 78 rpm records was this: Red Ingle - Cigareetes, Whuskey, and Wild, Wild Women. In the immortal phrase, 'never did me any harm'.

[conuly]

Ah, but in the Good Old Days the devoted mother spent every moment not cleaning tending to her darling babies. And singing to them.

Fun fact: Parents today actually spend *more* dedicated time with their kids per week than they did when the people posting here were kids.

[lunabee34]

I am remembering fondly the time my toddler started belting out, "Feel like making love!" at the Easter cookout with my conservative, Evangelical family. Honestly, the most entertaining thing that ever happened at one of those shindigs. LOL

[minoanmiss]

wahahahahahahaha

[cynthia1960]

You just made my day.

[gingicat]

One of the LPs on my parents' shelves was "Missa Luba" - a 1958 translation of the Christian Mass into Congolese and performed in traditional Congolese styles. Whether my White Jewish liberal parents had come across this by accident or through their Black archaeologist friend, I have no idea, but small me played it over and over again in the 1970s.

[harpers_child]

That sounds amazing and I may have to track down a copy for my sister.

[petra]

A friend happily tells the story of the time they performed Sodomy from Hair at the age of less than five for a bemused audience of adults.

Their taste in music is impeccable.

The kid will be okay.

[likeaduck]

THe pacing is great for a good screamy-dramatic kid song.

[cimorene]

Even if nursery rhymes are helpful for learning the things they're about, it's not like children are being HARMED by not learning nursery rhymes. That makes this letter extra surreal to my mind, because surely the bottom of this slippery slope is the ethical obligation to give one's offspring as much advantage, ie. teaching songs, as physically possible?

But also, unless their child is homeschooled its whole life without access to tv and film, it's pretty much guaranteed to learn those helpful kid songs as soon as it starts daycare, preschool, or kindergarten.

[cereta]

I mean, if nursery rhymes teach good things, so does Styx.

[semperfiona]

When my daughter was six, she was transferring to a new school and we were doing the 'meet all the teachers' thing. She sang Seanan McGuire's "The Black Death" to the music teacher, word for word from memory. Around that time, her favorite CDs were Voltaire's "Boo Hoo" and the soundtrack from _O Brother Where Art Thou_. She has grown up to enjoy all types of music and is basically the family DJ whenever we go on trips, introducing the rest of us to music from all genres and all over the world.

[purlewe]

I feel like telling them.. wait until your kid finds a song you just don't like (agre approriate or not) and they sing it on repeat. It doesn't matter if it is twinkle twinkle or LilNasX's Old Town Road. Kids will repeat songs until you wish WISH wish why would stop.

I have every song I ever learned at camp in my head and random things will make me sing little bunny foo foo for no reason whatsoever, years later. Kids get songs in their heads. it happens. And it always ends up being the song the adults LOATHE eventually.

[librarygeek]

My mom taught us "Little Bunny Foo Foo" and I didn't realize that other Americans knew it until I was the children's library technical assistant in my thirties!

Our nursery rhyme collections were decidedly British or French, and I had arguments in kindergarten about "my versions". Once the teachers realized our grandmother's older immediate family members were all British or German born, the teachers knocked off arguing with me. 😂😉🇬🇧

[ellen_fremedon]

My mother, who is no singer, had three lullabies for me: "Old Stewball," "Charlie on the MTA," and "The Long Black Veil." Being sung to sleep on mid-century adult folk about gambling losses, adultery, murder, and being trapped forever on the subway did not do me any harm.

[ysobel]

One of the songs I grew up with was Nancy Whiskey, a song about a weaver getting addicted to booze, which included

As I came down to Glasgow city
Nancy whiskey I chanced to smell
I walked in, sat down beside her
Seven long years I loved her well

The more I kissed her, the more I loved her
The more I loved her, the more she smiled
I forgot my mother's teaching
Nancy soon had me beguiled

[...]

So come all you weavers, you Caltan weavers
Weavers where e'er you be
Beware of whiskey, Nancy whiskey
She'll ruin you like she blinded me

Only I was too young to know about alcoholism and possibly too young to grok metaphors, so I thought it was about a woman (for some reason I assumed blonde hair and long red nails) who seduced a guy and then literally poked his eye out, so he went back to weaving but had to do it by feel.

Learning it was about booze made it way more boring...

[feldman]

My mom can't sing, but she played folk and filk, to dad's Motown/Philly and 70's metal. My grandmother's lullaby repertoire featured such classics as 'Bushel And A Peck' from Guys & Dolls, and 'Beer Barrel Polka'.

I sung many of the above for my baby, along with a slow version of 'I Wanna Be Sedated', and a bunch of silly songs I pulled out of my own sleep-depraved ass (there was one about teeth coming in I wish I could remember). Kiddo's 15 and curates a 9+ hour playlist the whole family shares.

LW's baby will be fine, they'll just probably take the cool parent with them to concerts when they're older.

[harpers_child]

"Bushel and a Peck" was one of my grandma's songs too.

[kshandra]

I kind of want to send them a gift basket filled with Twinkle Twinkle Little Rock Star CDs...

[xenacryst]

Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time
For y'all have knocked her up
I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe
I was not offended
For I knew I had to rise above it all
Or drown in my own SHIT

Followed by one of the most virtuosic guitar solos in all of time and space. Why the FUCK should my kidlet not be allowed to partake of this ecstasy?

[nonethefewer]

This reminds me of the time I put together a playlist in Spotify of "bouncy background kid-happy music", and completely forgot that I'd put in the lullaby version of War Pigs by Black Sabbath.

"I guess past!me decided to put tinkly music in the list. ...wait a sec..."

[sporky_rat]

That's awesome