Explicit lyrics in songs - what do you do?

[Turnipvontrapp]

Just been listening to my 10yr old's playlist on spotify and some of the songs are really inappropriate so I have deleted them from his playlist.

These are popular songs by popular artists and quite shocking.

Would you let your 10year old listen to them? Do I need to chill out about these things?

Its yet another thing along with TV and Play station that am having to police now.
Aargghh, so easy when they are toddlers compared to all this.

I only have toddlers so probably know nothing but could you use these lyrics as a starting point to a conversation about sex, relationships, respect, love and expectations? Delete them and explain why? Or discuss your ds' views on the song's themes and content, ask whether he believes what he hears or just sees them as 'a song' and little more? I know that when I listen to songs I generally only hear the music abd rarely pay attention to the lyrics and am sometimes quite surprised by how misogynistic they can be (ie blurred lines).

I could I suppose, but don't want to explain some of them to a 10 yr old they are that bad so have deleted instead.

Do the songs have a 'radio mix' or radio edit? This tends to be toned down so at least the swear words and stuff have been taken out. In some ways there's not a lot you can do about the vast majority of lyrics being godawful. I once had a tape called 'Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves' so supposed it was all full of inspirational, kick-ass songs. Whilst all the singers were awesome, every single song was about being in love with some man they couldn't have.

Why wouldn't you explain what the lyrics mean? Explain why the attitudes are unacceptable, explain that the words used are offensive, etc - but don't just delete things.

I second what someone else said about making sure your dc goes with the radio edit version when they're downloading stuff.
You're going to have to have some sort of conversation about it anyway, whether you like it or not, because your child is going to say "mum, what's happened to my spotify playlist? What have you deleted all my songs?"!

It's a perfect time to explain them. 10 is not too young to learn what is and is not inappropriate behaviour and language, especially if it is about women and how to treat them.

You're missing a golden opportunity here, really.

I understand the OP's reluctance, though - other than what I've told him about suffragettes, as far as I can tell my ds (aged 8) has no concept of why girls might be less than him. I would have to first tell him that idea exists and then explain what the lyrics meant - I'd kind of rather he didn't know it was a problem for longer. Equally as they have just had Anti-Bullying Week at school, I hope they have covered sexism as well as racism and other forms of bullying there.

There's not a chance I would have deleted his songs without telling him in advance.
I understand and respect that you are the mother and you find stuff like that inappropriate , I do to but you have ridden rough shod over your kids stuff.

It would have been better parenting in my opinion to have had the chat first. After all he has already listened to them.

When one of mine was about 9 he asked me what 'mother fucker' was as he had heard it on a song. I just explained that it was a term that a lot of people find offensive, and got the conversation going that way. It was a good starter about the se of inappropriate language etc.