Holy s**t cocomelon is driving me insane!

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Cocomelon is the show that needs no introduction. You already know it's bad. We all know it.

So I pay a monthly fee to have Paramount+ because it has my daughters favourite show on it (Paw Patrol) but partner Jane and mother-in-law (whose name I can't pronounce but let's call her Donna) can't seem to figure out how to get to the Paramount+ app on their TVs, phones, iPad or Chromecast - Even though I installed the Paramount+ on their TVs and on their phones and on their iPad and on their Chromecast.

But for some reason Donna and Jane can always find Youtube. Well if Youtube finds out you have young children you can bet your bottom donut it will show you billions of Cocomelon videos. So here I am trying to watch Youtube downstairs and I've been hearing the same Cocomelon videos coming from Donna's TV upstairs for literally hours. Because she can't find the Paramount+ app on her TV. But her finger and eye are always drawn to the Youtube app on her streaming box as if by a magical force.

Now Donna and Jane aren't the most technically ept persons. I'd tell them how to torrent their own shows so they could watch any show they want but that would be like teaching a pigeon to play chess. Donna doesn't even own a computer!

Paw Patrol probably isn't the world's greatest or most character-building kids show but at least it tells an actual story instead of just being hours of off-key singing. I'm concerned about the quality of the shows my daughter watches. If she watches too many low quality shows she might grow up to be a right-winger or an Apple fan. I should be able to have some control over what she watches but I'm not a single parent. I'd say her mother and grandmother are in control of what she watches but they're not in control. Being in control would suggest they know what they're doing. Youtube's algorithm is in control.

Jane and Donna don't specifically choose Cocomelon. It's more like they don't have a concept of choosing at all. All music is equally good as far as they're concerned so they just go for whatever the algorithm dishes up (Cocomelon). I try to explain why this isn't good quality music and Jane looks at me like I'm speaking a different language.


So I was talking to my manager at work about this. Her kids are older than mine and she said that she didn't expose her kids to that nursery rhyme stuff. She was concerned about her kids having poor taste in music so she only exposed her kids to what she considers tasteful music. Bob Marely, etc.

I don't know what her husband thinks of this but I can only dream of such luxury. Having a wife who assists me in curating good musical taste in our child.

Jane and Donna won't do that not because they have bad taste in music but because the very concept of choosing which music to listen to is incompressible to them. They listen to whatever comes up in Youtube's autoplay. They don't have bad taste. They literally have no taste. They literally think all music is equal and can't comprehend the idea of some music sounding better than other music.

I don’t think any Low quality entertainment parents expose kids to has all that much to do with their taste development. Shoot, I sang silly songs off key to my kids and one grew up to have trend setting musical taste while the other has an affinity mostly for classical. I think it’s more about breathe of exposure since, after all, it’s hard to like something you’ve never heard. Since I was losing my hearing when my kids were young, reality is they didn’t hear a lot of music in our house at all, but somehow between friends, family and car rides my second child developed discerning taste anyway.

I took my kids places and exposed them to a variety of activities, both cultural and pedestrian. I let them follow what drew them in, and avoid what they found irritating. The main curating I did was to allow them to hold their innocence a little longer, but even that has limited effectiveness in our media saturated world.

As long as they get broad exposure, they will pick their own paths regardless of anything you do. I really don’t think you can curate their exposure to help them develop good taste; they just have the ear or they don’t, IMHO. The idea exposure only to quality will mean they grow up with taste is pretentious, if you ask me. Worth remembering that what is and isn’t quality is a matter of opinon.

As with so many topics, engage with your child about what they see and hear. Those conversations DO help them learn about the world and can teach them what to listen for.

i do admit it surely is irritating to live in a household that has day long noise you really dislike. Maybe MIL needs some headphones.

Yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe I was overreacting when I thought this is going to cause her to grow up with bad taste. Her taste will probably be what it will be regardless.

You’re a parent. You are going to find yourself worrying about all sorts of things; totally normal.

Also normal that you hope for a child with the best taste, lots of talent, etc; increases their odds in this world, right?

And also normal to hope they will like what you like.

It’s inevitable you’ll mess up somewhere, but those usually take us completely by surprise and often come from our obsessing over something else. In my case it was the obsession that did damage. But my kids have gotten past that, too, and grown into truly wonderful adults.

Open heart, open mind, unconditional acceptance and love. The rest is a crapshoot.