Some close friends of mine gave birth to a baby girl a couple of weeks ago. They're getting a lot of advice from all the perfect parents out there so I thought I'd add my two cents on a lesser known parenting challenge: lullabies.
It's essential for new parents to consult with each other before comitting to the lullaby they'll use to sing the baby to sleep. You’ll be hearing this song at all hours of the day and night so choose carefully. Not that you have to choose one song but chances are you'll have a ‘Go- To Song’ that dominates your lullaby canon.
This advice comes from my own painful experience. The Wife inexplicably chose Michael Row Your Boat Ashore as her Go-To Song. I’ve been hearing her earnestly croon, ‘Halleluiah’ since The Boy was a month old. I’ve got nothing against African-American spirituals; I occasionally pull out Old Man River myself, but I’d hardly call it my Go-To. Me, I’m split between You Are my Sunshine and Cheeseburger in Paradise.
But there’s something about Michael Row Your Boat that’s particularly troubling. For one, we’re not exactly a religious household so it can be a bit disorienting to hear The Wife sing a song so steeped in religious rhetoric. But she also insists on singing it in the vernacular to pay homage to the slaves who are reported to have first sung the song during the Civil War. Some nights I’ll be sitting down in front of another episode of So You Think You Can Kill a Guy and I’ll hear her in the other room:
Michael row de boat ashore, Hallelujah!
See my mudder on de rock gwine home.
On de rock goin’ home in Jesus' name.
The final straw is the song’s tempo. It’s nigh on ghostly. Some nights it takes The Wife a full five seconds to finish singing the word Hallleluuuuuuuuuuuuuiah. I've started to suspect The Boy fakes falling asleep just to make the song stop.
I've tactfully asked her to consider diversifying her set list and to her credit she's tried. Just last night I heard her singing her Go-To karaoke song: "Ground control, to Major Tom..." from David Bowie's Space Oddity. The tempo is just as spooky and the song ends with an astronaut floating helplessly in space, but I'm grateful for the change.
Adding a new member to the family will bring many more joint decisions. This is just one more to consider. I suggest you each put together a song list and jointly choose according to each other’s musical tastes, vocal range, and ability to carry a tune. And after all that, if you still see a murderous gleam in your partner's eye as you sing your precious baby to sleep with the thousandth rendition of Rock-a-bye-Baby, I recommend you hum a few bars.
Nice post! I laughed when i read that cheeseburger in paradise was one of your go to song! Good food for thought here
Posted by: John Parent | 08/15/2011 at 01:00 PM
Did you know I wake him up with Jimmy Crack Corn on my tenor banjo? "Bye Bye Massa!"
Posted by: rachel | 08/16/2011 at 11:18 AM