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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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

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.”

We had a number of Sesame Street songs on playlists, especially songs like Cookie singing "Share It Maybe," or the Dixie Chicks singing about the letter B, and I will always have a deep and abiding love of "What's the Name of That Song". The key was just to mix them up, and the result was a tiny girl making her Elmo doll dance to "Macho Man" as we drove along I-74.

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.

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.

Yeah, I was thinking more of

Me And A Gun by Tori Amos, about her actual real-life experience of being raped at gunpoint

or Eminem's ’97 Bonnie & Clyde, which has a father singing to his small daughter after he has murdered her mother, stepfather, and half-brother

https://genius.com/Eminem-97-bonnie-and-clyde-lyrics

or pretty much any of the songs on Nick Cave's album Murder Ballads...

https://genius.com/Eminem-97-bonnie-and-clyde-lyrics

o_0

Nick Cave did *murder ballads*?

(makes note to look them up)

https://genius.com/albums/Nick-cave-and-the-bad-seeds/Murder-ballads

OMG you and WD need to discuss this in detail, and I apologize for not telling you before!

Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue, "Where the Wild Roses Grow". In fact it's off an entire album named Murder Ballads.

Extra slashy version with Blixa Bargeld (of Einstürzende Neubauten) singing Kylie Minogue's part. LOOK AT THOSE TWO ZOMG EEEEEEEEE They had a long time creative partnership when Blixa was also in The Bad Seeds and a lot of people shipped them.

From the same album "Stagger Lee" (NSFW lyrics).

More Nixa (yes they have a portmanteau name!) slashy goodness. (One of the two of them said in an interview "We look like two gay businessmen at a disco.")

Edited 2021-10-28 15:19 (UTC)

Astonishingly enough, my kids are functional humans despite listening to both Tori Amos and Eminem as small children.

Who knew!

I have not yet become a sex worker despite "Fancy" being my favorite song as a kid, nor have I murdered anyone despite the vasty enormous number of country murder ballads I grew up with. My Other Favorite Song, the Beatles' Rocky Raccoon, never left me to commit murder-suicide In a fit of jealous rage after falling in love with a sex worker.

But I also don't think bitch qualifies as a slur at all anymore (and it's certainly not a slur on the level of the n-word, as evidenced by one of the gets spelled out and the other doesn't) so maybe I was irreparably damaged by grownup music growing up after all

I think Maxwell's Silver Hammer is in the "cartoon violence" category. Sort of like I used to know someone who wouldn't let her kids have toy guns that looked like guns, but toy guns that looked like Buck Roger's Space Blasters were fine.

When I had a small child I think I also would have excluded "songs that it will upset the grandmas to hear the kid sing," which would probably have ruled out, say, the Ramones' Beat On the Brat until the kid was old enough to fine-tune their behavior to be appropriate to the context.

Yeah, I remember making my Raggedy Ann puppet dance to songs like "Betty Lou's Getting Out Tonight." I was almost thirty when I had the, "Oh, wow" moment about what it meant.

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