Wiggles | The Musings & Artful Blunders of Scott D. Southard

I am an entertainment parental snob. Which means, I am NOT about to just put anything on the TV to entertain my child like some parents do.

Yes, other parents I am silently judging you right now… OK, maybe not silently.

Oh, yes, there is a bar for me and children television, and I expect a show or movie to reach it; because, frankly, I want my kids to enter the world of the arts (books, movies, music, etc.) with an idea of what is aesthetically good and enriching, what is bad, and what is just generic noise. And, hopefully, in other words, I will have 12-year old kids someday who will consider books like Harry Potter over books like Twilight.

So even before my first child was born I had a list in my mind of starting points of what I was going to do my utmost to avoid; a partial list would include:

Barney
The Wiggles, or any facsimile of it
Anything related to princess and fairies
All Dreamworks animation films (especially any film related to that horrendous green creation named Shrek)
Power Rangers Continue reading →

Recently, I’ve been listening to jazz a lot with my children. What can I say? It is like comfort food for me. I play it in the morning, around dinner time; it’s a Scott thing. Anyway, it got me thinking of an article I wrote a while back for Green Spot Blue (a literary parenting online magazine) about jazz and parenting.

In it, I recommend some records for the young listener and give some parental suggestions on how to listen to the music with the younglings.

Here is the beginning of the article:

As parents we all want the best for our kids, and our plans are filled with the best intentions. Many times this relates to music and our desire for our kids to know more than just what is on the pop stations. Some parents may try to listen to classical more, but for me I have always chosen jazz. Jazz, above all other music genres, seems to me to sing of creativity, the thrill of thinking outside the box. Songs are filled with experimentations, expressions. You feel love more, you feel pain more. There is a story there that surpasses any you may hear in the lyrics of a country song.

The problem is that many times when we parents sit back and look at our own musical choices, we can’t help but feel guilty. Usually it is the same artists, the same albums; we return to the comfort of what we like the most, not realizing that our child is hearing the same thing again… and again… and again….

Well, for the parent that wants to introduce their child to America’s great original artform, might I recommend 7 classical jazz albums to share with the family. Consider this an opportunity to lose The Wiggles, this is an introduction to jazz.

I go on in the article to recommend work by Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Louis Armstrong, Charles Mingus, and others. You can check out the article here.

I still stand by my anti-Wiggles statement.