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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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'.

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.

Singing lovely traditional folk-songs (full of violence, murder, and betrayal...) of course

Literally what I sang to the kids. Until they made me stop. (Also: Nursery rhymes. I really like some of those! There is quite an overlap between "violence murder and betrayal" and the nursery rhyme canon".)

When I was five, my favorite poem for Dad to read aloud to me and my 3-yr-old sis was "The Highwayman"; I don't know if I was attracted by the cadence or the illustrations. I completely understood that [a] the girlfriend killed herself to warn her lover of the ambush and [b] the soldiers killed him anyway when he rode back to her after hearing about her death. What my 5-yr-old brain couldn't comprehend was why he rode away in the first place; if he was going to let the soldiers kill him, that could've happened the first time he rode toward the girlfriend, right? LOL! I remember being satisfied that they got to be together as ghosts.

But yeah, there's some horrific stuff in traditional nursery tales -- Hans Anderson and Brothers Grimm -- which people have ignored with the way Disney has sanitized many aspects. Somehow, most of us managed to grow to relatively normal adulthood.

Two words: fairy tales.

Oh, yeah. I always kind of roll my eyes at people who insist on baby-wearing until the kids are like two, and never once using a stroller. Because that's how people used to do it. And (a) no, they really didn't, and (b) the biggest reason some mothers did, and still do, wear their babies is because they don't really have an alternative. I've got nothing against baby-wearing, but this whole ultra-attachment thing just weirds me out.

Hey now, that was because the smaller one SCREAMED when I put him in the stroller. God I was glad when he was able to walk and I could switch over to holding hands. Ooof. That kid was HEAVY.

Oh, there are obviously exceptions to any and all claims about children and parenting ;). And I admit some bias: wearing wasn't really an option for me after a couple of months, because of physical limitations.

Oh, I think the last time I put up Eva she was five. It really is MUCH more convenient than a stroller if you don't have a car and take public transport. (Also very snuggly. Whether this is a pro or a con depends on whether or not the snuggly baby is holding a mushy banana, and whether or not you want to fall asleep on the bus.)

Knowing how to wear my kids has saved my butt at least twice.

The first time, I had an 18 mo. old who had gotten sick while traveling on a plane. I had to get a screaming child, their car seat, and a week's luggage back to the car solo. I had a wheel contraption for the car seat, so I buckled the luggage to the seat and used a long scarf to tie the baby to my back, so that they didn't scream but instead snuffled unhappily into my nape. That is also the last time I went ANYWHERE without a ringsling until my kids were about 5, which leads to....

The second time got trapped by a snowstorm walking distance from home, with a preschooler and a 13 mo. old in the car. We live on a ridgetop & that's how I found out my car couldn't climb the ridge in snow. (Unsurprisingly we sold it not too long afterwards.) I had the ringsling and an ergo in the car and long story short that's the day I figured out how to rig them up together to carry both kids at once.

But wearing babies being heck of useful in many circumstances isn't the same thing as extreme baby wearing, y'know?

Fair point. I tend to get just a little emotion to the subject, because the same people who were taking a moral stance on wearing v. strollers, and I do mean "moral," were telling women like me that we shouldn't have had babies if we weren't going to be able to breastfeed, that cradles were abusive cages, and that if we didn't have unattended home births, we had no business being mothers. The wearing/stroller thing was closely involved with the whole who-can-be-the-most-attached-mother think that it made my head hurt. Apologies for the generalization.