On Music

Recently, a friend of mine relayed this story to me. He and his daughter were driving in the car. He had some not exactly kid friendly music playing on the stereo. Soon enough Baby Girl requested, "can you put on some more music? Not this music." Confidently solidifying her point she added, "This is yucky music." Although this story amuses, it also illustrates the point of this post perfectly. It is incredibly difficult to find music that will entertain both parent/nanny and child.


Throughout my experience as a nanny, this story has repeated itself in many incarnations. Most frequently I have seen where the parents give no notice to the music they play in the car and I later hear the children repeating lyrics that are generally inappropriate. For example, J's favorite song as a toddler was M I A's "Galang" At first it was amusing to hear him sing along to this catchy tune. However, as the lyrics became more familiar, the drug references were obvious and soon we had to fib a bit and say the "Galang" disc was broken. EVENTUALLY he stopped asking for it.


This was not to bed outdone by the two girls of the yellow brick house. One day as we were out on an adventure, I was surprised to hear them both behind me singing, "Like this, like this, like this..." from Mim's song of the same title.


Much like my "On Parroting" post, it is obvious they are listening and taking the words in, though they may not be aware of the meanings. (At least we hope not!)
So how do we avoid this pitfall? No man (ie. parent/nanny) can musically live off of "The Wiggles" oeuvre and discs of other childrens' songs like "This Old Man" alone. Thankfully for me, there are discs like "No!" and "Here Come The ABCs" by one of my favorite bands, They Might Be Giants. 

I find this music, produced by musicians I know and respect, much more tolerable than the random arrangement of "Old MacDonald" found on any number of CDs geared at youngsters.


Being a classically trained musician, I also enjoy any of the four "Beethoven's Wig" discs that take classical works and add historically related lyrics to make them interesting and funny. I sure could have used these during my music history "drop-the-needle" tests!

Music with the C family is a bit tough when older brother H is around. He often enjoys pop hits that may prove inappropriate for his younger siblings. (The current favorite is the relatively inocuous "Dynomite." It is not uncommon for me to hear little APC singing Taio Cruz's lyrics in her sweet little voice. Obviously it is risky to set the dial to many regular radio stations while in the car. We often resort to Radio Disney, though it's not my favorite.

I suppose what I want to accomplish with this post is a reminder to parents and caregivers: they are listening. Even though the music seems like background noise to you, they are ingesting it and learning from it, good or bad. We can't always prevent them from acquiring a colorful vocabulary, so my advice is to be aware and attempt to find things that the whole family can enjoy. It may be a pain, but you can rest easy knowing that your child won't be the one reciting Eminem lyrics at school.