Like many families with tweens and teens, we are a multiple-device household, so our sons sometimes watch and listen to things I am unaware of. Heck their iPhones give them access to the whole world, all the information on it, and everything that comes with it.
As the events of the past few months have unfolded, we have spoken with them countless times about things they have seen and heard or might see and hear.
Did you know Snapchat 
has all the news outlets on them?
has all the news outlets on them?Well, one of our son’s learned about the FBI’s missed handling of a call related the Parkland Shooting watching NBC Olympic coverage on Snapchat. NBC Olympics coverage is something I was so in favor of. I just didn’t know Snapchat was the mode of watching it or that they would break coverage of snowboarding with an FBI Press Conference.
Thankfully in this case our son came to us and it made for a great and engaging conversation. But again he knew things, knew things because of information he saw that I hadn’t yet seen.
I am not saying I didn’t want our son to know this information because again it made for a wonderful conversation. I’m just saying the way he found out is so different than I would have as a teenager.
But I digress… there have been many times in the past I wished I could have turned their iPhone into just a phone because though I sometimes don’t like the access to the internet it provides, I do really like being able to reach our sons and yes, sometimes track them.
Our sons love music and they are often found with headphones on as both have pre-game playlists to get them pumped before hockey games. They love the new headphones their grandparents bought them for Hannukah—these awesome wireless Powerbeats http://amzn.to/2FLcSo1—and I love how music makes them smile… Sadly though that music isn’t want I thought it was and it is time for a change…
So why am I writing today? Well last night when I went to look on Spotify 
for a song for me… “Pray for Me” by The Weeknd and Kendrick Lamar from The Black Panther Soundtrack https://apple.co/2CT50Ox, a song I love. I was horrified when my Spotify matched the search to the Explicit Version.
for a song for me… “Pray for Me” by The Weeknd and Kendrick Lamar from The Black Panther Soundtrack https://apple.co/2CT50Ox, a song I love. I was horrified when my Spotify matched the search to the Explicit Version. I then went to our son’s phone… A search of his Spotify playlist showed me that so many of the songs we listen together to in the car on XM Radio were EXPLICIT in the app… some of them I had no idea were even offered explicit.
Shame on me for not checking sooner that’s for sure. I can re-count countless conversations like this…
Son: Oh this is a great song, I am going to add it to my pre-game playlist.
Me: Sounds great buddy…
Sadly I never looked—never even thought that song was also available and in the case of Spotify defaulted to Explicit.
I have now done some due diligence and as of this moment our family is now a member of Apple Music
Family Sharing, same price as Spotify Premium but they offer parent controls! We are now able to forbid the listening of Explicit Music by specific users.
Family Sharing, same price as Spotify Premium but they offer parent controls! We are now able to forbid the listening of Explicit Music by specific users.I read that Spotify wants to allow artists to upload their music as they intend it. And while that is their right, THIS family will now being giving our monthly music money to Apple.
We monitor social media—we read text messages, we monitor group chats, we try to engage the boys in conversations about what they read and see online like the great conversation we have around Parkland… but music… well the music piece just slipped through… I never personally used Spotify, I play satellite radio in my truck and I knew iTunes provided a clean first in response to my search as does Shazam https://apple.co/
A few months ago the boys asked for Spotify Family as many athletes have playlists on it and when you have the Premium Service you can download music so I naively said yes. Hard lesson learned… not all searches and services are the same 🙁
The feeling of failure as a parent I guess should be one you get used to… but on this point I felt like I don’t even know what… I will simply try to do better in the future.
Hard lesson learned… we need to be even more diligent about technology, about what is streaming, about what we let between our son’s ears.
Cindy Griffin
I’m thankful my children are adults because being a parent in this age gets harder each day. You can only do your best to keep up and from the essay you’ve written, it sounds like you’re making every effort to do so. I would like to add though, did you have a conversation with your kids about why they choose to listen to the explicit version? I know kids will push every limit set (mine certainly did) but I felt like I wanted them to come to the conclusion as to why they made certain bad choices. If they decided on their own to not make the bad choice, I felt like I scored one for my parenting. We can tell them all day don’t watch, don’t listen, don’t say, but in the end we still need them to understand why it’s bad for them.
Sounds to me like you’re doing a great job though! Go mom!
Denise
Thank you so much for beautiful comment! Spotify it turns out doesn’t have the clean version for most songs so it wasn’t a choice. They bill themselves as the music the way the artist intended… so when you Shazam or look up the song by name you get the Explicit version.