agonyaunt | (no subject)

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

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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.

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. 😂😉🇬🇧

I once made a friend literally double over in laughter with "Little Bunny Foo-Foo." Did your version "bop" them on the head or "bash"? We learned "bash," and more than a couple of people not in the troop were horrified. Which, of course, is when we'd bust out the latrine songs.

Different person obviously but I learned it with bop. (Calif with midwestern parents).

A few weeks back I sang to my roommate a bunch of childhood-learned songs -- that, the bumblebee song, on top of spaghetti (all six verses), do your ears hang low, johnny verbeck -- that she hadn't ever heard. She was a little o.o at some of them.

I didn't at the time recall Charlie on the MTA, or I'd've done that. I don't know whether the song is better or worse for the fact that it was created for election stuff way back when, lol

Let me tell you: seven years in Girl Scouts and many, many years in various church singing groups proved to be a valuable parenting tool. We also used "Personal Penguin" while washing her hair (she went through a kind of phobia about baths and especially hair washing). The amazing pay-off was when she "helped" daddy wash his hair and started singing "your pengun" (spelling intentional).

You know, when the soldiers sang that song during WWI, it wasn't the ears that hung low.

That song got heavily bowlderized for the kiddies after.

Ha yeah. I learned ears first, then at some point boobs, but when I learned the original body part it made so much more sense omg.

Bop, but usually accompanied with a full open hand ✋tap on the head for little ones, but one fist tapping the other ✊✊ on the head for the older kids!

Girl Scouts found out that their style of songs/games might not be the only one when they do larger events (regional/state/tri-state/natinal) and we had the phrase "regional differences" when we would sing a song and find out it wasn't the same as the local version. Just means I have more songs crammed into my head :D

Wishing you a day without someone "bopping you on the head" LOL

They shouldn't've been arguing with you in the first place! Had they never learned the phrase "oral tradition", or the better phrase "pick your battles"?

Teachers, in a city in the 70s? I had more problems with the older teachers near retirement than the younger or Jewish ones. Because of who I was, the teachers usually knew who my parents and grandmother were, and their expectations for me differed based on their own length of teaching.

I also remember my first grade teacher smacking my left hand with a ruler trying to use it for writing. Yes, I usually use my right hand for writing now, but I use either hand bowling.