Does allowing your children to listen to rap at an early age make you a bad parent?
Many people feel that rap music is negative and if a parent allows their child to listen to it, than that parent is a bad parent. This is because many rap songs condone the use of drugs, sex and violence. If the child is expose to this at a very young age, then there is a greater chance that the child will engage in those activities later on in their life.
By exposing toddlers through kindergartners to rap music or allowing others to expose them to it, they often start to conform to what they think is cool or funny. Some young kids might hear a rap song, start to dance and try to sing to it and people will comment about how funny or cute it is, often enough and so that child might be inclined to want to listen to it because of the attention they get.
I was on youtube.com and I came across a video of some young kids rapping the song Grillz by Nelly. Although the song isn’t really referring to violence or drug, it does discuss sex. The kids in the video are also dressed up with jewelry and fake “grills” in their mouths. This showed how the parents seemed to encourage the children to mock hi-hop artists without careful consideration of their actions. They also seemed to encourage and make fun of many of the stereotypes of the African-American and hip-hop community. I’m not saying they are bad parents, it just seems that the parents were contributing to the negative stigma that many people have towards the hip-hop community.
However, allowing your child to listen to rap music does not always have to be bad. Listening to diverse music is actually beneficial to your child’s social and cognitive learning. Parents just should monitor what exactly their child is listening to and make sure there isn’t any profanity and obscure language. Because children often tend to listen to what they hear, a parent should try to use the music to teach the child about different cultures and how to be more acceptable of those cultures. Furthermore, the parent should try to find kids appropriate songs such as those produced by Kidz Bop, which recreates popular songs and have children sing them.
So with this I ask again: does allowing your children to listen to rap at an early age make you a bad parent?
2 comments:
I definitely believe that music influences society. For example, a few years ago when the Dixie Chicks made a negative remark about George W. Bush, they were outcast by the media and society for voicing their opinion. In response, they released a new album in 2006 as a type of rebuttal to the country music industry. They proclaimed that they were no longer labeling themselves as "country" singers. So this is a great example of the impact music AND artists can have on our society. Whether it is negative publicity of positive publicity isn't for our kids to decide. Children should not be able to listen to music just because society says it is acceptable. So if this is the type of society that we live in, should we subject our children to uncensored music at a young and impressionable age? Again, I think that it is the parent's decision. But if they do allow their children to listen to and watch uncensored artists than I think it does raise the question of whether or not they are parenting their child in the appropriate way.
I Strongly disagree with this because, if you teach your children right from wrong when they are listening to this type of music they will not follow this examples. (even thought they might repeat it) It all depends on how much they listen to it because either way it goes somewhere in life they will be exposed to it in a different type of way media, even if you are just walking down the streets. So therefore if you expose your child to this type of music at an early age you are not a bad parent.
Post a Comment