Can Song Lyrics be Dangerous...For Parents?

Earlier this year I was listening to a Taylor Swift CD with Sophia, my 6-year-old, when the song "Picture to Burn" came on. "You know there's a bad word in there," Sophia said. "Mom said I can say it only if I'm singing along."

I shrugged.

"You know, the S-word," she said.

I was pretty sure that girl-next-door Taylor Swift didn't curse in her songs, but could I have been wrong? "What word is that?" I asked, with "sexy" or that other S-word coming to mind.

"Stupid," she said.

I exhaled. We listen to a lot of music in our house, but I'd never given much thought to how it might influence my children. I don't want to deprive them of the joys of music, but many of the songs that appeal to them - the ones with catchy, danceable beats - are thematically inappropriate for young kids. What can I do?

I have two confessions. First, some of the songs I listen to contain language I would not want my children to hear. Second, my children have inadvertently heard parts of those songs. I do my best to make sure they don't, but accidents happen.

I consider myself a responsible parent and citizen, and an adult with a right to make my own choices. I also have the ability to separate offensive messages in the media with reality. At 8 and 6, my children don't yet have the intellectual capability to determine what kind of social input could be harmful to them. My job as a parent is to limit their exposure to such things.

Unfortunately, many (if not most) of today's popular songs contain language that would have been considered scandalous 20 years ago. Radio stations bleep out the really bad words, but what's left often refers to sex, drinking, drug use and many other implicitly mature themes. Sometimes, even I'm horrified.

When adults hear things they know are taboo in society, they are less likely than children to be strongly influenced by them. Life experience and brain development allow us to understand context, weigh consequences and control our impulses. But if impressionable kids hear these messages enough, they may learn to think it's normal to glamorize sexual promiscuity and doing drugs. In other words, they can become desensitized.

Our family listens to the radio a lot, and not all songs are inappropriate. When a song comes on that I don't want my kids to hear, I change the station (when Ella doesn't tell me to do it first). What else can I do?

I can restrict listening to certain stations at home, but for how long? I can control what CDs they have in their room or what's on their iPod, but what about at a friend's house? Or at the mall? Or at school? I try to be open-minded when it comes to allowing my children the opportunities to make good choices, but this issue is not going away.

I can't be stupid about it.