What a Teen Pop Anthem Taught Me About Raising Kids

"Alexa, volume ten!" Those were the words that completely shattered my peaceful Tuesday morning while I was wrist-deep in sorting out a laundry basket full of crusty toddler socks. My oldest boy, Hunter, who's currently serving as my daily cautionary tale for why you shouldn't teach a four-year-old how smart speakers work, had just figured out how to request specific songs. Suddenly, my living room was vibrating with the aggressively upbeat sounds of late-2000s teen pop. I'm just gonna be real with you, the sudden blast of a teenager singing "baby, baby, baby, ohhhh" at maximum volume before I've even had my second cup of coffee is enough to send a rural Texas mom into early retirement.

My grandma, who my kids affectionately call G Baby, was sitting at my kitchen table helping me package up orders for my Etsy shop. She just about dropped a roll of bubble wrap and stared at the ceiling like the sky was falling. We ended up having this whole debate right there over the shipping tape, trying to guess the actual age that Justin Bieber kid was when he recorded that hit track. I was absolutely convinced he was maybe twelve years old, mostly because he looked like a child who should have been asking his mom for a ride to the mall instead of touring the world. G Baby insisted he had to be older because of how he worked the stage.

I finally got annoyed enough to look it up on my phone while confiscating the smart speaker from Hunter. Turns out, he was fifteen years old. He recorded it right at the end of 2009 and it came out a few weeks before his sixteenth birthday. That little piece of trivia completely derailed my morning, honestly, because it sent me into a total spiral about how fast these kids grow up and what it actually means to encourage some kind of musical interest without losing your ever-loving mind in the process.

When I realized my kids are going to be teenagers someday

Finding out he was fifteen just wrecked me for a minute because it means he was right in the thick of puberty while belting out those high notes. I look at my little boys running around covered in dirt and peanut butter, and it terrifies me to think that in just a decade they're going to be moody fifteen-year-olds dealing with voice drops. Your voice box literally grows and your vocal cords get thicker and longer, which is why teenage boys sound like they're swallowing a frog every time they try to speak loudly. It's just biology doing its awkward, unstoppable thing.

And let's just talk about how awful puberty is for boys for a second. Bless their hearts, they've no control over their limbs, they eat everything in your pantry, and their voices crack right in the middle of a sentence when they're trying to sound tough. I remember reading somewhere that Bieber actually had to lower the key of his songs when he sang live because he couldn't hit the notes anymore once his voice started changing. Imagine going through the most embarrassing, sweaty, voice-cracking phase of your human existence, and you've to do it with millions of people watching you.

It makes me want to wrap my kids in bubble wrap and keep them little forever, away from the awkwardness and the overwhelming smell of cheap body spray that I just know is in my future. I honestly don't know how moms of teenagers survive the sheer attitude and hormonal chaos that comes with those years, especially when their sweet little toddler voices suddenly morph into these deep, booming baritones that startle you from the next room.

I guess he had some kind of world-class vocal coach to help him figure out the voice changes, but regular moms like us just have to nod and pretend we didn't notice when our kid sounds like a squeaky hinge.

What my doctor actually said about little ears

Before having kids, I had this fantasy that I'd play classical piano music for my babies and they would grow up to be these refined, brilliant musicians. Reality check: my kids think banging a metal spoon against a dog bowl is peak musical expression. When Hunter was a baby, my mom kept telling me to just put on the country radio station because it "builds character," while the internet was screaming at me to only play Mozart to increase their IQ.

I finally asked my pediatrician about it at a checkup because I was so tired of the conflicting advice. Dr. Evans is this super practical guy who doesn't sugarcoat things, and he basically just shrugged and told me that exposing kids to different sounds is great for their brains, but we all need to calm down about raising child prodigies. He kind of mumbled something about keeping the ambient noise around the house under 60 decibels to protect their hearing, which apparently is the volume of a normal conversation or a humming refrigerator. I don't know who has the time to walk around measuring decibels with an app while trying to keep three kids alive, but his main point was just not to blast music in their tiny ears.

I think the medical folks say that loud noises can honestly damage the little hairs inside the ear canal permanently, though I'm pretty sketchy on the exact science of it all. What I do know is that after that appointment, I completely changed how we do noise in our house. If you want to keep your sanity and protect their hearing, just hide the smart speaker remotes, give them some quiet toys, and keep the car radio turned down low enough that you can still hear yourself think.

The toys that seriously survive my living room

So if we aren't blasting pop anthems to teach them about music, how do we really encourage them to explore sounds without giving ourselves a migraine? I've bought so much junk over the years, mostly battery-operated plastic nightmares that light up and sing off-key songs until the battery slowly dies and it sounds like a horror movie. Never again.

When I had my second baby, I finally got smart and asked for the Rainbow Play Gym Set with Animal Toys from Kianao. Y'all, this thing is beautiful. It's made of actual natural wood, not that cheap plastic that snaps if you look at it wrong. The hanging animal toys make these gentle, natural clinking sounds when the baby swats at them. My middle child would just lie under it for twenty minutes at a time, completely mesmerized by the shapes and the soft noises. It honestly looks nice sitting in my living room, and it gave me enough time to drink my coffee while he figured out cause and effect all on his own.

Then we've the teething phase, which is its own kind of noisy nightmare because of all the crying. I'm a big fan of the Squirrel Teether Silicone Baby Gum Soother. It's relatively cheap, it's cute as a button with a little acorn design, and most importantly, I can just throw it in the top rack of the dishwasher when it gets covered in fuzz. It's 100% food-grade silicone, which means I don't have to stress about weird chemicals leaching into my kid's mouth while I'm trying to answer Etsy customer emails.

Now, I'll say I also tried the Bunny Teething Rattle Wooden Ring. It's a gorgeous little crochet toy, completely organic and handmade. I wanted to love it, I really did. But I'm going to be honest here: if you've a dog, skip it. My golden retriever mix thought I bought him a tiny new chew toy, and the crochet material attracted dog hair like a magnet. It's lovely if you live in a pet-free, pristine house, but in my chaotic rural Texas home, it just didn't survive the ecosystem.

If you're trying to figure out how to keep your little ones engaged without turning your house into a loud, flashing arcade, you might want to check out some of Kianao's educational toys that seriously rely on natural curiosity instead of AA batteries.

What I used to believe versus the messy truth

Before I had these kids, I totally judged the moms in the grocery store who handed their toddlers a phone to keep them quiet. I thought I'd be the mom organizing daily acoustic guitar sessions and leading family sing-alongs. The truth is, some days are just about survival. Some days, musical development looks like letting your toddler bang two empty Tupperware containers together while you cook dinner.

I've learned to stop stressing about whether they're hitting specific developmental benchmarks perfectly on schedule. I used to worry that if I didn't enroll them in a fancy mommy-and-me music class, they'd fall behind. Now? I just let them explore the world on their own terms. Sometimes that means listening to the same pop song fourteen times in a row because it's the only thing that stops a tantrum, and sometimes it means sitting in complete, blessed silence while they chew on a wooden ring.

We're all just doing the best we can, trying to raise decent humans who hopefully won't blast music at us when we're old and gray. So give yourself some grace, hide the electronic toys when you need a break, and remember that every phase—even the loud ones—eventually passes.

Ready to swap the noisy plastic junk for something that really looks good in your house and gives you some peace? Check out Kianao's full lineup of sustainable, quiet baby gear right now.

The messy questions y'all keep asking me

Do babies really need music to develop properly?

Look, the experts always say music wires the brain for math and language, but I honestly think they just need exposure to regular life. You don't need a curriculum. Let them hear the birds outside, let them listen to you sing badly in the shower, and let them shake a box of dry pasta. It all counts as auditory development in my book, so don't let anyone guilt you into buying an expensive infant piano.

How do I know if a toy is too loud for my baby?

My totally unscientific mom-test is this: if the toy makes you wince or gives you a headache after five minutes, it's way too loud for tiny, developing eardrums. I usually try to muffle those awful plastic speakers with a piece of clear packing tape, but honestly, just stick to wooden rattles and natural toys. Your baby's hearing is delicate, and frankly, my sanity is too fragile for siren noises at 7 AM.

What's the best way to clean these wooden and silicone toys?

I'm notoriously lazy about cleaning. For the silicone stuff, I literally just toss it in the dishwasher with our dinner plates because I refuse to hand-wash things if I don't have to. For the wooden toys like the play gym, you can't soak them or they'll get weird and split. I just take a damp cloth with a little bit of mild dish soap and wipe them down when they start looking grimy, then let them air dry on the counter.

Is it safe to let my baby chew on wooden rings?

Yeah, as long as you're buying the right kind. I panicked the first time my oldest gnawed on a wooden toy because I was convinced he'd get a splinter. But high-quality ones like the Kianao gear use untreated beechwood that's sanded down perfectly smooth. Just inspect them every once in a while. If you see cracks or rough spots, toss it out. But honestly, they hold up way better than the cheap plastic teethers my kids used to bite clean through.

How do you deal with the teething whining without losing your mind?

I complain to my mom, I drink way too much coffee, and I keep a rotation of cold teethers in the fridge. Notice I said fridge, not freezer—freezing them makes them too hard and it can really hurt their little gums. I just rotate them out all day long. And when nothing works and they're just screaming, I put them in the stroller and walk outside. Sometimes the fresh air resets both of our attitudes.