Relinquishing your influence
Letting your child pick their own mediocre music
It comes as no surprise to anyone with an older child that part of parenting is letting go of your influence over your kid, then gradually relinquishing all of it. At six, it feels like the influence we have over Ada’s clothes-music-media-friends-hobbies-news intake is falling off a cliff as her prefrontal cortex develops, her navigation of Apple devices reaches expert levels, and the influence of her outer world permeates.
Reckoning with this is often fascinating (when she pipes up with her take on the war in Ukraine, for example, or comes home knowing how to do the Rainbow Loom), and other times I find myself wrestling with what I see as her “bad” taste, which for sake of example I’m going to call: The Desire to Procure and Read Dog Man books, Incessantly Watching the Tween Fantasy Musical Movies, "Descendants 1, 2, and 3, and Spending Her Tooth Fairy Money on Cheap Disposable Plastic Objects. I wrestle between “maybe I can help her make a more discerning choice?” and “Just let her figure it out on her own,” knowing that doing the former is a somewhat passive aggressive form of judgement in its own right, but the latter often means feeling like I’m lighting my actual money on fire and flushing it down the toilet.
You want there to be an appreciation that seems obvious to you but will never come on demand—for the better pizza, the gourmet ice cream, the live music you took the kids to see in the park. You want them to know that you drove 10 extra minutes to get the tastier tacos and asked your friends for recommendations for a cool dance playlist you thought they would love before they demanded the “Despicable Me” soundtrack, again. You want them to be able to tell the difference and validate the effort you put in, your own tastes so readily projected onto these choices.
On Sunday night Jacob left for a quick trip to Florida, and Ada asked if we could have a dance competition after dinner. She deemed Julian the first judge, where he had to assign us points for different moves, then she was the DJ and got to pick the song. The goal was to dance vigorously showcasing the widest array of moves and skills until the judge declared a winner. The winner got to be the next judge, and so on.
Ada bounded over, grabbed my phone, navigated to the Spotify app, and asked me to put on Lady Gaga radio. “It’s like Lady Gaga, and then all the people similar to Lady Gaga,” she explained. “Papa taught me about it.”
Lady Gaga Radio offered up Rihanna, Dua Lipa, and Taylor Swift in quick succession, and we rotated in and out of competition and judging, with Ada being declared most often the victor, Julian in second, and me always in third.
Reluctant to wind down for bed, she angled for a final track before pajamas, excited to see that on Roar by Katy Perry was up next. “I just LOVE LOVE LOVE Katy Perry” she said in a dramatic voice, passionately melting down to the ground in an opening dance sequence. She informed me she’d listened to this during after school art class.
Ada got on all fours to tiger-mime through the roaring component of the song, and I internally bemoaned her love of the song slash Katy Perry while also appreciating how unselfconscious she was about telling me all of this. Ada was experiencing a love for the song as the song, unconcerned with the idea that music taste projects anything at all, blissfully unaware of cultural context.
I climbed into her bed shortly thereafter where she was reading a book called Weird but true! 300 Bizarre Facts About the Big Apple, a selection which Jacob had reluctantly gotten her at the bookstore earlier in the afternoon. Upon making the choice, Jacob had simultaneously tried to be supportive about books-in-general while encouraging her to buy something that he described as “less of a POS.” [Cue aforementioned internal debate around judgement.]
As we lay in her bed, she flipped through, and on page 167 read out a fun fact about none other than Katy Perry. “Singer Katy Perry once attended New York’s Met Gala dressed as a chandelier,’ it stated, with a picture of Perry’s famous (infamous?) costume. I questioned whether this was really a fact about New York City, and why it deserved to be in a book, but didn’t say anything aloud.
Ada, however, was ecstatic. Her favorite singer was in her brand new book, dressed like a chandelier. This was a singer she’d discovered all her own. This was a book she had picked out all on her own. It was all meant to be.
Recommendations:
Cutest dresses: The frocks at Hello Simone are what i’d splurge on if Ada was still influence-able.
Newsletter rec: Perfectly Imperfect is a 2x weekly newsletter with assorted recommendations from real people. Sometimes they recommend concrete things like restaurants, products, music, movies. Sometimes it’s a habit, a trip, an era, a mood, a vibe.
Dessert shortcut: The frozen Levain cookies you can get at the grocery store and cook off a few at a time. (No comparison to the fresh Levain cookies but not a bad option in a pinch).
To listen: The On Being interview with Drew Lanham, an ornithologist and professor of wildlife ecology, who offers a poetic and moving way of pausing to see and notice the world.
To get on the waitlist for: The Vietnamese desserts and cookie tins at Ban Bè, a family-owned operation by Doris Ho-Kane (in Cobble Hill), written up in the NYT over the weekend.
To read/admire: Questlove’s essay for the NYTimes: “Collection is An Act of Devotion, and Creation,” about the importance and meaning of the objects we acquire.
The perfect piece of furniture for a small room: We inherited an older version of this CB2 daybed that also works really well as a guest queen bed. The room it’s in is my office and sometimes midday I just lay on it and work and it’s like I’m at the therapist’s office.
Watched and recommend: Bridgerton Season 2 because it’s pure candy. Drive My Car for a long, meditative, introspective journey. The Power of the Dog for the landscapes and sheer cinematic beauty. Ali Wong’s newest special, Don Wong, for a classically raunch, hilarious nightcap.
See you next week.
What worked for us:
1. Long drives. I ask my kid what they'd want to share, and they are good for about five songs before feeling self conscious. Then, I share songs I want them to appreciate, and explain my love. I get about two explains and five songs, I begin to lose them so I toss it back. I also ask questions and note things I like.
2. Three jar allowance: Savings, Spending and Helping Others. I give equal to each every week. Spending I don't judge, Savings they need to ask/justify as not frivolous and Helping Others is for a cause they think is important. Spending used to be candy, but lately has gone into Savings; as such, I've been less stringent on what is okay. My sons are thoughtful about what they get--it means something to them.
3. Expectations without dictates. We used to have a family reading time, but what was read was not proscribed. We expect involvement in art/music and athletics. When my older son dropped band, he said he was interested in piano and did that. Then, guitar. He also moved from school sports to simply becoming a gym rat. He's musically proficient and healthy in a way I am not.
4. Chat up what you like. Parents have influence over kids even when they don't think they do. Saying Band X is great is heard, or Austen. Only toot those things you actually like.
5. Play movies you like in public places. Many movies I know I came into twenty minutes after the start, my parents watching. I just played West Side Story while my son sat on the couch watching his own videos, but he kept commenting on WSS, the songs and plot.
Great article. Your daughter is awesome; that photo made my day.
relinquishing control seems quite attractive if it means i can stop being the spotify DJ