A driving beat drifts through the space inside the van. "Ah, so you are enjoying this satellite radio?" I ask with a laugh.
"Yeah," he grins sheepishly in reply.
The musician belts out a few more lines preaching an askew view on love. The children sit in the back, somewhat curiously listening to the music. They have never heard these songs. For the most part, we try to be careful what songs we play in their presence. Our general rule is heavy on the praise music, light on the silly children music. {The latter part for my own personal sanity. I am not a fan of silly children music.}
I laugh at the lyrics which we are both heartily singing along to. He looks over at me, raises his eyebrows, and asks, "What's so funny?"
In reply, I nod toward the radio. A slight pause lingers in the air as he listens. Understanding, he laughs and says, "Maybe I should turn that back."
Later, as the praise music fills the car, I turn to see my daughters heartily singing along, drumming their fingers to the beat.
~ Dorie
A bit of an explanation: While there can be nothing wrong with music of all types, per se, I can only speak of my husband and I's personal experiences. What we listened to as young children became ingrained in our memories some how. For both of us, if you play a song our parents listened to while we were growing up, whether we liked it or not, no matter if we haven't heard it in over 20 years, we can both sing along to the lyrics, pretty much word for word. For me, not so much on key, but still singing along without any prompting. When we realized the connection in our own lives, we made a conscious decision to carefully monitor the music played in our children's presence during their early formative years.
It's just been in the past couple months that I have realized how much the kids listen to the music. I tend to listen to oldies (that are NOT that old) or Christian radio...or books. My problem is that almost wherever we go, not ONE Christian station stays tuned in the whole time unless we stay within 10 miles of home...RARE. I hate to change the station.
ReplyDeleteSatellite radio would be oh.so.nice.
(On a side note...one of the local stations that claims to be safe for the whole family though secular and comes in near and far...made their little safe advertisement and then played a very explicit song. That was the last time I listened to that station in the car. Not so safe. My husband tends to ignore the words and lets music just be in the background...but I noticed right away. Thankfully.)
Oh, I totally get it :) For months we only listened to the Thomas the Train CD in the car - and it was a LONG few months :)
ReplyDeleteNow we have a grownup praise CD in, and both girls sing along to the "Bible Song"..."Oh God, You are my God" which makes this mama's heart SO happy :)
My hubby is a huge Bruce Springsteen fan, and I love Billy Joel and pretty much anything country so our girls hear us sing along at home....but we switch the CD or channel if a song comes on that had lyrics we don't want the girls learning yet!