I cannot hear Fleetwood Mac without thinking about my father. The second “Don’t Stop Believing” comes on, I picture him whistling through the hallways while catching up on weekend chores. Even today, our family vacations are not complete until he performs at least one interpretive dance to “The Chain.”
My dad has always loved music well, burning me CDs containing a wide spectrum of artists from global instrumentalists to Kansas’ Greatest Hits. When I was a teen, he was quick to offer me recommendations while lamenting when I gravitated toward artists like The Chariot and mewithoutYou. To this day, he still does a horrible impression of Joanna Newsom to anyone who will listen and then explain “This is what we had to listen to for years.” He’s so stubborn, I can’t get him to listen to Paul Simon’s Graceland despite the fact that I know he will love it. He knows what he wants, and he is set on it, and that’s fine by him.
Over the years, Dad Rock has gone from being a genre that was endearing yet slightly laughable to being fully respected. As Niko Stratis so brilliantly defined it in her book, The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman,
“Dad rock is a genre of loose origin and even looser definition, a box with blurred lines and fuzzy edges letting all things bleed in and out of it at will. The classic definition of the genre is born in garages, the golden age of AM radio, and air stained by the smell of cheap beer lingering in bronze bottles.”
At its core, Dad Rock is a lot like the classic definition of pornography: you know it when you hear it. It’s there hiding away in every genre, apparent in the oldies that stuck around long enough to earn respect.
Naturally, when the topic of Dad Rock comes up, there is a question lingering alongside it: what about Mom Rock? As a mother who is constantly hunting down new music, I think about this question a lot. Do we get our own genre? And if so, can it be equally respected? Here is why I’m often not so sure.
Women-driven music is seldom respected in its time
I bounced the idea for this essay off of my husband while we were making dinner one night. “I don’t know that Mom Rock is really a thing,” he said. “What do moms even listen to? Taylor Swift?” I don’t think he was very prepared for my gleefulness as he fell into my trap.
Because like it or not, Taylor Swift is exactly what people consider a “mom genre.” I cannot tell you how many friendships I’ve forged by striking up a conversation over her older music (I would like to exclude anything past Midnights from this conversation, please and also thank you). I have danced at the Eras tour. I have stayed up too late to listen to yet another album release. And while her pre-2022 albums have been critically adored, it took a very long time for them to get there. In fact, Pitchfork reviewed Ryan Adams’s version of 1989 before they even considered reviewing hers.
The disdain for anything largely perceived as feminine goes back pretty far. Consider the Lilith Fairs: the entire thing was started because Sarah McLachlan was told that no concert promoter would accept a bill with two women listed. So, she created her own festival, stacking the bill with all female performers, many of whom were mothers. The artists who took the stage breastfed their babies in the green rooms and traded off on childcare. They sang to crowds of women who looked like them, loved like them, mothered like them, and dreamed like them.
Lilith Fair influenced countless artists throughout its brief three years yet was reviled in its time. Shock jocks and late night hosts used it as fodder for their jokes, and a bomb threat shadowed a 1998 show. Only now has it started to get the respect it deserves, getting a documentary as well as a revamp through Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain fest. It took nearly three decades to cement its rightful legacy.
Motherhood is adaptation
An odd thing happens when you become a mother. Suddenly, you are no longer seen as an individual. Strangers only greet your child, and you spend every family gathering answering a millions questions about toddler development. Before long, you start to lose your sense of self. You don’t recognize your body, and you spend your little bit of downtime feeling guilty about watching a sitcom rather than cleaning the living room for the nine hundredth time. When you listen to music, you’re not trying to uncover the latest artists you can share with your friends. You are putting on the music of Encanto yet again because you cannot survive the whining that happens without it.
Dads, on the other hand, have often gotten to retain their sense of self. This is especially true of fathers from decades past, particularly Generation X and prior. Only now are we seeing a major shift as more dads are entering the domestic sphere. Historically, they didn’t have to worry about taking their kids to the doctor’s office or feeding them between soccer practices, and they certainly didn’t have to worry about adjusting their entertainment around younger ears. Pretty much every person I know has a beloved piece of media they saw at too young of an age because their dad didn’t see it as problematic. I would put my dad in the “unusually involved 90s father” category, and yet, I still spent too many Sunday nights parked in front of the couch watching The Simpsons until my mom came in horrified.
Dads get John Candy comedies and old SNL episodes and midlife crisis motorcycles and Wilco. Moms get kid-appropriate Hallmark Christmas movies and discounted Live Laugh Love decor at Hobby Lobby. While dads get to maintain personhood, moms are expected to shrink. There is a reason why moms have often been associated with whatever media is easiest to access in between another round of “Silly Songs With Larry.”
Moms simply are not cool
Okay, I know exactly what you’re thinking right now. “This isn’t true. Sarah Davis’s mom was very cool. She burnt me my first Nirvana CD.” Yes, while this definitely reaches “cool mom” status, I can almost guarantee you Sarah Davis was in the background groaning because her mom dared to talk to her friends.
Most moms can never be considered cool in their own time. This goes beyond my original point that feminine things are seldom given proper contemporary credit. A good mom exists as a boundary. As you grow, you consistently push against them until you are molded like a pearl. They chisel you, and they contour you, and sometimes, they break you. That constant friction means you simply are not going to take their recommendations on things like pop culture. Instead, you are going to rebel against them. At a certain point, tastes are formed solely by defiance. That same teenaged angst is going to give you blinders as you look back on this time. Maybe you’ll come to love the same art she once loved, but you probably won’t. And then, once you become a parent, you’ll reach a point where the same thing happens with your kid. This is actually what Joni Mitchell’s “The Circle Game” referenced (and I can tell you this because my mom never cared for Joni Mitchell).
So, why does this not happen as much for dads? Because, if we’re honest, dads have always been given a pass. For decades, fathers have existed less as a constant presence and more as the abstract, especially when being a stay-at-home mom was more feasible. We hold more affection for dads because they remain a mystery. They were a distant figure whose attention and devotion we always fought to achieve, and I don’t know if that kind of feeling ever goes away.
Right now, my preteen prefers driving with me because he likes my music. We agree on artists like Hayley Williams and Foxing. When I go to concerts, he asks the next morning to see pictures. The other day in the car, however, he interrupted the conversation to say, “You know, I think it drives Dad and my brothers crazy when you ramble on about Sufjan Stevens.” And he was right. He’s reaching the age where he gets to develop his own tastes, and I cannot wait to see where he lands. Maybe he’ll come back to my favorites. I think he might.
I’m personally reaching that point with my own mom. I find her tucked away in 90s country artists and old Rod Stewart albums. We seldom agree on pop culture, but I’m starting to find comfort in the things she loves. Her genre is unwieldy and impossible to navigate, yet I always know it when I hear it.
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