Rap Music Makes Parenting Cooler

My nine years of parenting has been riddled with exciting triumphs of coolness - but I realized something a couples days ago about how rap music has elavated the cool.

I let Deondre sit in the front seat of the truck (he really LOVES him some "butt warmers" and it WAS cold... I didn't see the harm in going a short distance with toasty buns). We had on "KISS FM", which is our local cool station that plays all the newest music - pop, R&B, rap. There was this Jay Sean/'Lil Wayne song on and after a minute, I noticed both Deondre and I half booty shaking our warm buns, nodding our heads and smoothly rolling out the lyrics. I drive this great black Jeep Commander with great bass and tinted windows and I realized this was a COOL moment.

I got to thinking once we got home how important rap music has been not only in my life, but in my parenting. I grew up in a very homogenous, suburban town where a lot of country and James Taylor was played, but in 8th grade discovered LL Cool J, Public Enemy and Rob Base. I learned all the lyrics. I choreographed cheerleading routines to it. I recorded them off of my ginormous boom box from the NYC station that I could juuuuust get in at my house if the attenna was just right.

Fast forward like 12 years. Infant Deondre is strapped in his car seat and the Hyundai I had at the time was crappily crankin' out Jay Z's "Izza". My one parenting claim to fame from this is that surrounding a little one with (relatively) loud rap music will make them sleep through anything for the rest of their days. Trust me on this. Maybe vaccuum cleaners work too, but rap music = gold.

Another few years go by and iTunes explodes. (So fun for a girl who used to own that ginormous boom box with ONE tape deck). I get to show Deondre how we can hear a song on the radio and own it in like 5 seconds. He learns how to click around and he learns what "explict" means. We make sure to buy only the "clean" versions of our favorite rap songs. I explain censorship and how what you hear on the radio isn't always how the song was originally recorded. I also take the opportunity to talk about Will Smith and how he vows not to swear in ANY of his songs. Good impression. Good manners. Inappropriateness. It's all gone over as we download, sing along and practice dance moves.

Let me inject here that there ARE certain words and phrases that will inevitably sneak through into the ears of children. I mean there just is. But as anyone who caught that "dirty ho" line in the Cat in the Hat movie... it happens... you suck in your breath... you slowwwwly look at your kid to see if they caught it... and then address it accordingly. I personally would MUCH rather be the first person that my son hears that word in front of so I can break it down for him. If I left it in the hands of his elementary school peers, he might feel pressured to use it all the time because everyone else is doing it. I notice now that he'll TELL kids not to use that type of language (I work from home and when it's nice out and the windows are open... I HEAR things...). I have yet to hear him swear anywhere - amazing, ANYwhere. And he talks about it with me.

Now that he's getting older and really into the songs and the singers/rappers, we'll try to study up on their bios - learn how they grew up, where they're from and I hope particularly that they overcame some sort of adversity or worked their way up to fame in some unique way. Then D can see that it's important to support friends with dreams, give people opportunity AND learn about what's behind the person before judging them. That's the goal. I'll let you know how that goes.

Until next time, if you see a black Jeep Commander rolling down the street with a mom and kid rocking out, that's probably us.

Thanks Jay-Z, Drake, 'Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg, Akon and the rest... keep sending us the good stuff!