“Who does your Mom sing?”
An honest question asked by my 7 year old to a friend at school. The boy looked at him strange and replied, “nobody.” Ryan came home completely amazed.
“And…Mom! He doesn’t know who Steven Tyler is. Ozzy Osborne, Dimebag or even Kurt Cobain!” He couldn’t believe it.
I laughed and then began to think…how different are we? I grew up on a beautifully peaceful mixture of my Dad’s Beatles, Eagles and Queen and my Mom’s Aerosmith, AC/DC and Michael Jackson with a little bit of New Kids and Salt n Peppa thrown in the mix for fun. Music has always been my thing. And, it’s definitely a staple in our home.
My husband is a musician, and as I study more about Music Therapy and dive further into my Special Education studies, I have found a particular reassurance behind singing.
Who doesn’t sing to their kids though? Whether it’s their ABC’s, prayers or The Itsy Bitsy Spider, children and singing have long gone hand and hand. My generation Disney movies turned musicals hip with singing mermaids and genies. Today’s are computer animated and some almost completely silent!
I sing to my children when they wake up, when we clean, when we eat, when we drive, when they take a bath and most of all, when they go to sleep. I’ve sang many a Flyleaf song and Aerosmith daily. Nirvana is a favorite, Ozzy gets us hyped up. Even Eminem and Tech N9ne have a spot in our world (Who can forget the “Einstein” game the boys played when they were little!!!)…And I do throw a few Britney tunes in there for fun.
So, I gotta know, Moms, who do you sing?
I sing to our (unborn) baby every day! He's very fond of worship songs but also gets a kick out of anything from the Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack.
My husband plays his acoustic for the baby, and so far the baby's responded well to Bob Marley, Roby Duke, and Muse.
my mom sang Bruce Springsteen ( Prove it all night) to me as a kid, and Pink Cadillac too. I have sung to my daughter since she popped out, anything from nursery rhymes that I change the words to so that they are about her, to internet viral video songs ( look at my horse, my horse is amazing). Since we call her Pie, all our songs are about Pie, like Twinkle Twinkle little Pie……
This mom sings to her on tunes and made up lyrics that are based on the moment. It is now cute to see my son sing them to my daughter. We also have the radio going so we can dance and sing to it!
The only traditional nursery rhyme we sing is twinkle twinkle little star and that is because their room is covered in stars.
I have been judged many times because my kids to not know Rock a by baby but know the theme song to Cops "Bad Boys" (which happens to be our theme song when someone is in trouble:) )
Here are a few of the tunes I sing to my baby:
Tamborine Man (with the words "Hey Mister Tavi Bean, man")
Superfreak
Loooots of Stevie Wonder (at least this week)
oh my yes, we sing lots of "my cheri amor" and "isnt she lovely?"
Wow, I can't believe some people live without music in their lives! I am 7 months pregnant and so far the baby LOVES Brian Setzer, punk and ska music and Mozart. I am currently going to school to be an opera singer and my Fiance is an amazing guitarist, if we didnt have music in our lives then we would go crazy. We are gonna raise our baby on all kinds of music! I personally grew up on Rush and Aerosmith and I remember the Scorpions being my favorite band when I was small.
My son loves Brian Setzer, and so far his favorite band is the Misfits (as far as a 4mo can like a band). He also likes to sleep to reggae music.
Our 5-year-old son loves anything fast–techno, punk, bluegrass. He knows everything from MSI to Jimmy to The Faint. Our 2-year-old daughter likes anything loud, which in our house tends to be metal or Dre (thanks, D). I hum Pearl Jam's "Wish List" to our daughter before bed, and our son has his own theme song to the tune of "Davy Crockett". My kids favor regular music to kids music. I love hearing them sing to themselves or totally jam out.
I'm totally a lurker over here, but I have to comment that the concept of a 5 year old rocking out to MSI is absolutely fantastic.
Ooh! I'm inspired what some of what you Mama's sing!
Today alone, I've sang "Jingle Bells " (of course), "Living on the Edge"- Aerosmith, "Goodnight Sweetheart"- not sure who sang this, it's an oldie, but a goodie!, "I Don't want to Stop"- Ozzy and "Amazing" -Aerosmith!
I think I'll write a followup blog with some of the awesome songs you awesome Mamas sing!
Ooh! I'm inspired what some of what you Mama's sing!
Today alone, I've sang "Jingle Bells " (of course), "Living on the Edge"- Aerosmith, "Goodnight Sweetheart"- not sure who sang this, it's an oldie, but a goodie!, "I Don't want to Stop"- Ozzy and "Amazing" -Aerosmith!
I think I'll write a followup blog with some of the awesome songs you awesome Mamas sing!
Everything and anything. Favorites with my 1 year old are musical songs it seems especially cokeyed optimist from south pacific, It always makes her laugh.
Interestingly enough though when she was 9 months our child health nurse instructed me to stop singing to her cause she (at that stage) wasn't trying to say consonants and it sounded like she was trying to sing instead of babble and talk. Stopped for 2 weeks and within that time she went from nothing to completely babbling.
your kids played a game to Tech's Einstein?!?
coolest. mom. EVER.
Yep! I actually know Tech and we went to see him often when we lived in KC, so it was even more exciting for them to hear his songs! It was our cleanup song and they would jump around and dance. 🙂 They still love it!
I HAD to respond to this!! When I was pregnant, a lot of my friends were as well. They were all shocked that while they played classical music to their babies in the womb, I was turning on the Stones for my baby. I also found a CD that has the stones music, but it was like lullabies. Anytime a Stones song came on, my baby would go CRAZY and kick and spin. Now that she is 19 months old, her FAVORITE song is Paint it Black. She also loves Deep Purple, Jimi Hendrix, and AC/DC. She also hates lullabies and the only ones she will listen to without screaming is the Itsy, Bitsy Spider and Hush Little Baby.
Michelle, I played the Stones to my oldest! And the Beatles! I swear that's why he has such classic rock taste. While my middle son loves the old and new rock, J very much prefers the classics, which is FINE by me!!! 🙂
I just loooooooove music! Pretty much all kinds! And the same thing happened to me… When I was pregnant everyone kept buying me classical to listen too. And they were all very surprised that after her birth my baby would fall asleep to just about anything… even Beyonce! So now my 20 month old daughter loves to "shake her booty" (yep… she knows what that means!!) to anything and everything! She loves all the older musical style Disney films. We are country folk from the boonies so she gets a lot of country music! But of course there is George Thoroughgood, Static X, Flyleaf, Metallica, AC/DC, MJ, Eminem, ZZ top, Akon… The list goes on and on… One of our favorites to sing and dance too is the ENTIRE soundtrack from Pulp Fiction. "Counting flowers on the wall that don't bother me at all…" She doesn't even startle at the gunshot sounds… Or real gunshot sounds for that matter… I told you we were rednecks. (Just kidding… we take care that she is never directly exposed to guns… But I can't help it if my husband gets woken up at 5 am by crows and shoots off the back deck!!) And don't worry… our neighbors are all over 2 kilometers away.
We are definitely offbeat… not entirely hicks but not entirely straightedge either. Oops!!
I'm deaf so I prefer not to traumatize the kiddo with my tone-deafness. LOL. Instead, we make lots of Pandora stations based on songs we like, plus the kiddo music she hears on Nick, Jr (Laurie Berkner, etc). When she was in the womb, though, I sang her lots of James Taylor and Jackson Browne.
The Eagles, Harry Manx, Amy Winehouse, Kansas, Traditional Irish and Newfoundland music, even some Slipknot! We both come from musically inclined families, so singing is and always will be a huge aspect of our family. And our son, Sam, loves it!
Sing, sing, sing! We sing all the time with our baby, and I can't imagine not singing. My mom sang to us all the time as children, so it just came naturally once my little one arrived. I remember being so thrilled when she was still in the womb, kicking her way through swing music. Now, ever part of our day is filled with singing. A lot of children's songs, camp songs, hits from musicals, and way-back songs, mostly, and I've also learned the lyrics to others, like "Seasons in the Sun", "Scarborough Fair", "King of the Road", "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue". My standards are "Molly Malone", "Daisy, Daisy", "Kumbaya", and "Fais Do Do". Oh, and when I wash her hair I sing "Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair"! But the most heartwarming for me is that her mood can change 180 when I sing "You Are My Sunshine" and I'm wondering if she already understands how special that one is to me, since my dad used to sing it to my as a child.
My bigger question is: at what tender age must you stop singing Liz Phair to your daughters?? 😉
My dad used to sing to me all the time. He'd sing Angie Rolling Stones, Layla Eric Clapton etc and he'd always sing my name instead of whatever name was in the song.
Not a mother, but my mom would sing all the time- what I remember most is her singing patriotic songs to my brother and I while we were taking baths. (And I didn't even turn out to be some crazy conservative 😉 ) I still sing "She's a Grand Old Flag" to myself all the time. I think there was also a lot of John Denver sung. My dad would sing Bruce Springsteen and now when him and I are on his boat we blast the CD and sing together.
My children are going to get lots of Tori Amos from me and Phish from their daddy.
Not long after I found out I was pregnant I came across "Baby I Love You" covered by the Ramones. I've kinda made it "our song" and sing it alot and play it to the Bumble Bump. Other than Ramones, we sing Beatles and Amanda Palmer and Tori Amos and sometimes we rock out to Dragonforce. And then there's always showtunes, like Phantom of the Opera and Wicked.
My childhood was FULL of music and singing, even tho NONE of us can carry a proper tune, with the exception of my mom. One of our favorite things is when someone is talking and says something that can be turned into a song, or references a song, breaking into song and completely interupting their flow of conversation. MUSIC IS A MUST.
Like many others, my childhood was filled with lots of tone-deaf renditions of pop music. My children are equally as lucky – I've been singing to them since they were microscopic fetii. I'm also a musician in my off time, and they've had the privilege of listening to me work scales and practice pieces on my flute. My daughter, now four, favors early Green Day and Sublime. My son is only a month and a half, but he tends to gravitate more towards whiskey-voiced crooners like Norah Jones.
we sing anything and everything. My fiance is utterly horrified that I know who Jesse McCartney and Parachute and Jonas Brothers are AND know the lyrics. We play our music, they play their music…. we take turns and since my kids are older (I'm the step mum to a 12 & a 13 yo) we get to talk about what the songs mean and specific lyrics we like. Apperently their mother shelters them — they'd never heard Witch Doctor (oo ee oo ah ah) or "oldies" like the beatles and stones or anything by Bobbi McFerrin… now they hear it all from country to pop to classic to "oldies" (god I loathe that term) to hip hop to Vitamin String Quartet. It's AWESOME. And, I never thought I'd say this but…. thank the gods for Guitar Hero and other video game versions of blasphemy. It got my kids to appreciate The Stones and GNR and ZZ Top. It drives me NUTS but it got them to upgrade their music from The Disney Channel so it can't be all bad.
I don't have kids to sing to, but I grew up in a family that sang and played various instruments, so we grew up with music all around. I sing and dance with whatever is on the radio/CD player with my nephew, who trying to figure out how to snap his fingers! He'll also dance with me – if he doesn't get distracted by his trucks!
BTW, sometimes a child's taste in music will somewhat backfire on them in more conventional circumstances. My oldest little brother had a part y to go to at school in 1st grade, and everyone was told to bring their favorite music. Most kids brought Stevie Wonder, Teddy Pendergrass, etc. (this was a predominately black school in the early 80's), which the teachers played. They wouldn't play my brother's record – he brought Quiet Riot.
yea to all the singing mommas out there!!
my daughter was named after a song by Widespread Panic, so music is in her life! My husband is great at switching the lyrics of songs to fit whatever we're doing with her. she's only 4 months old but she seems to love it! he uses everything from Pearl Jam to Bob Marley and of course, Panic. However, when she's super fussy, we call in the pros and turn on Led Zeppelin. The other day she fell fast asleep to Moby Dick. our baby girl rocks!!
(Warning: I'm about to seriously date myself) Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Joan Baez, and the entire Golden Ring series from Folk Legacy Records.
I'm on the fence about having kids–I love them, but I'm getting to be a bit old to still be in the highly-enthusiastic I-want-a-baby phase and not be at least a little delusional–but I'll confess that the opportunity to teach them about the music I love so much is one of the reasons I haven't completely given up on the idea.
When I was little, it was all about the Van Morrison, Steve Goodman, Neil Young, Stephen Sondheim, Harry Connick Jr., John Denver, and James Taylor. Then we became teenagers and Mom got way into Nirvana and Blink 182.
My husband sings a lot of Neko Case to our son since he was a newborn. Now he even requests it when he goes to bed. 🙂
Other … Jimmy Cliff, Fred Eaglesmith, Feist, the usual (Itsy bitsy, twinkle, twinkle) and Om Mani Padme Hum (a Tibetan Buddhist prayer), Yo-Yo Ma — Bach: Six Unaccompanied Cello Suites (on of my fave, and we listen to it… no singing that one!), Paul Simon… and anything else we hear or know! 🙂