Are New Moms Too Cool To Sing Lullabies?
Another day, another child development specialist warning that we’re over-programming our kids. This time, it’s Sylvie Hetu and her new book, Too Much, Too Soon, which charges that mothers are forgoing traditional bonding methods in favor of Mommy & Me classes to the detriment of their children. What are new moms missing out on when they go to yoga and swim class? Lullabies.
I’d like to take this moment to mention that the only Mommy & Me class I ever did was a music class that taught us traditional and folk nursery rhymes and lullabies. So I feel like I’m at a very odd cross-section in this debate.
Anyways, Hetu never provides specific numbers of the drop in choral mothers, but the write-up of her book in The Telegraph does have this to say,
Singing lullabies is one of the best ways of forging close bonds between mothers and their babies, the study said, but many parents now reject the approach because it is no longer ”cool”.
It’s not cool? Really? I must have missed that memo.
Listen, I agree that we might be pushing our children to advance too quickly. We need to give them time to be infants and kids. But I don’t know a single mother who decided that she wouldn’t sing to her children because they simply didn’t have time between salsa and sign language.
For me, lullabies are a night-time standby. We always sing before we go to bed. Often we dance around the room. It might be different if I had a boy who didn’t love “A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes” but we’d still sing “The Good-Night Song” from The Lawrence Welk Show. My grandfather watched that show and my sister and I have sang that song to our children since the day they were born. My niece and my daughter wouldn’t even dream of putting a babydoll down for a nap without “The Good-Night Song.”
I guess I’m just wondering, did I miss anything? Did moms stop singing to their kids and I’m just not up on all the newest trends? Honestly, I just assumed that bedtime songs were still a prevalent habit.
