The Party Doesn't Start Until Sadie Walks In...

A friend's recent blog post got me thinking (yay for the free and open discourse of the Interweb! Were it not for the wonders of the Interweb, I would very rarely think about anything beyond sleeping and eating. You might think I'm kidding, but are you sure?) about the music my kids are listening to. Because here's the thing: The song she's referring to in her post (Tik-Tok by Kee$sha, and yes the dollar sign in her name bugs me so very much) is one of my kids' favorites. And it never occurred to me when Sadie started belting it out at Dunkin' Donuts on Saturday (it came on the radio) that someone in there might have been thinking, "How very inappropriate!" Of course, since Sadie is mine, I tend to find her very cute and hearing her belt out "The party doesn't start until I walk in!" seemed pretty funny to me. Because really, what is a party without a three-year-old? Especially an extra cute one like Sadie?

Then I read the aforementioned blog post. Like I said, it got me thinking. I went back and listened to the song again. Aside from a mention of "Jack" (as in Jack Daniels but my kids have no idea what "Jack" would refer to in this context) and a mention of boys wanting to touch her "junk" (again my kids would think either garbage or "stuff" like toys), what I hear when I listen to the lyrics is a song about a girl going out dancing with her friends. It doesn't read as particularly suggestive to me. But it did get Dean and me talking about the music our kids listen to. And it got me talking to some other friends about it as well. (I also had the best laugh of my week when Dean boiled it down by saying, "Unless *you* start brushing your teeth with Jack, I don't see any harm in letting the kids listen to that song." He is really so very domineering! If I want to brush my teeth with Jack Daniels, ain't nobody gonna stop me!)

The truth is, the kids listen to what we listen to. So the dance music I recently added to my iPod (which some would call an unfortunate addition--you know who you are) has made its way into the car and to my children's ears. Strangely enough, the girls were already familiar with Black Eyed Peas, having heard "I Gotta Feeling" at a friend's house. And, in fact, that particular song was played at a school dance recently, so I guess it must not be particularly objectionable. True, "Let's Get It Started" (at least the version I downloaded) has a swear in it (sh*t), but Sadie is often so focused on the fact that they say stupid multiple times in that song (stupid is a forbidden word in our house), that she misses the true swear altogether. I had considered whether it was bad parenting to let her listen to a song with a curse word in it (though I had never once considered whether or not that Kee$ha song was inappropriate), but I never went further with the question than pondering it for a few seconds and then forgetting it. When it comes to parenting, I'm nothing if not a slacker. I mean, my children may or may not have listened to the Beastie Boys at some point in their young lives. They (the Beastie Boys, not my children) swear too. A lot.

The truth of the matter is that my influence--what they listen to with me--only goes so far these days. "Let's Get It Started" is played at every single race I've ever run, so the girls would have heard it there even if they never heard it in the car with me (though it's possible they play the "clean" version of that song at races; I've never paid close enough attention). That Kee$ha song was on the radio at Dunkin' Donuts. "I Gotta Feeling" was played at the Barnsdale Hootenanny.

There was a time when all we listened to in the car was Ralph's World and songs from the soundtracks to Little Mermaid and Cinderella and High School Musical. But when we did listen to "our" music, we found that Sadie loved The Ramones. And Journey. And Ella loved a Pink song (which is about a messed up romance but which Ella says reminds her of her love for God--go figure). Most of The Ramones songs are about drinking and doing drugs, right? And yeah, Journey is pretty harmless. But the truth of the matter is that if you really, really start listening to the lyrics of most pop music, you're going to find stuff that's suggestive. The Beatles sing a song called "Sexy Sadie" that we put on a mix CD for Sadie (I made each girl a mix CD shortly after they were born--how very '90s of me), and I feel slightly weird about Sadie hearing the word sexy, but will it warp her forever? I grew up listening to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, and half of their music is about sex and the other half is about drugs. But I didn't know that at the time.

In the end, I'm not sure I've come to any insightful conclusions on the subject. I know there are some things that I absolutely, without a doubt would consider inappropriate listening for my children (Eminem, anyone?). But the stuff we listen to on a regular basis--dance music aside--I'm still up in the air about. I mean, what are our choices here? The children are with us nearly 24/7. So if we want to listen to music that doesn't suck (sorry High School Musical, but you really do get old fast; and besides, all of those songs about love and soul mates and what not are pretty suggestive too if you really want to get nuts and bolts about it) but we want to keep it wholesome, our options are limited. Most of the indie rock in our music collection is suggestive if you're really thinking about the lyrics. And heck, part of me does think that liking The Ramones makes my three-year-old (who also wants an electric guitar for her birthday and has aspirations of being a punk rocker) kind of cool.

Food for thought, I guess. I'd be very interested to hear where other parents out there fall on this. Feel free to leave a comment, and I'll try my best not to swear at you if you call me a bad parent. (I'm just kidding. I definitely won't swear at you because I brushed my teeth with Jack this morning and am slightly buzzed.)