Mr. Mike's Family Notes: Meet The Parker Ossoff Family

"It’s never too early to make friends"

In the photo: Sarah, her husband Will, their daughter Olivia, Sarah's mom Cynthia, Sarah's dad John, and Sarah's brother, also named Will.

Meet Sarah Parker, her husband Will, and their daughter Olivia. Sarah and Olivia come to Miriam's Monday afternoon class at St. George's with Sarah's mom Cynthia. When Sarah first wrote to me, she described her mother as "the purple hair lady you met at St. George's." So say hi when you meet them!

Sarah signed up this fall while she was on parental leave. Olivia was a few months old and not yet crawling. Like most families, she was looking for somewhere to go with a new baby, and that is a good enough reason to walk through any door, especially ours.

But there is another reason that goes back to her own childhood. "I grew up singing in the church choir, which I loved because of the shared experience of making music together," she told me. "I wanted Olivia to be introduced to that same kind of collective music-making, where it's about the experience of music and togetherness and not about how well each individual sings."

That is one of the clearest descriptions I have heard of what we are actually doing in our classes. The music is not about how any one person sounds. It is about what a room full of people sounds like when they are all in it together. Sarah knew that feeling before she ever participated in one of our classes.

She mentioned one more thing she was hoping for.

"I thought that Olivia would enjoy the social aspect of seeing all the other babies. It's never too early to make friends."

She is right, and I think it goes further than she may have realized when she wrote it.

Here is something I have watched happen for years. A baby who starts coming at five months does not learn how to be part of a group. She simply is part of one, every single week, before she has any memory of it being otherwise. She learns to wait without anyone telling her she is waiting. She learns that other people are singing and that she is allowed to join them. She learns that when an instrument gets passed around, it comes back to her. She learns that a room full of people can do one thing together at the same time, and that it feels good.

Nobody teaches any of that. There is no lesson in it. It happens because she is in the room while it is happening, surrounded by people doing it.

Then she gets to preschool already knowing how to be one person among many. Teachers notice those children. They are the ones who have been part of a working group since before they could crawl.

This is a part of our work I am most sure of, and it is the part that is hardest to fit on a flyer. Sarah signed up so her daughter could make friends. What her daughter is getting is a few years of practice at belonging, delivered in a form that looks exactly like fun.

A Family That Sings Together

Cynthia is Olivia's grandmother, and she is also with her during the week. Sarah calls her Olivia's grandma nanny.

"I'm always looking for opportunities for them to have fun together and bond even more," Sarah said. "It's particularly special when we can all attend class together, because I can see how special her bond is with Olivia, and it brings back memories of singing with my mom during my own childhood. We both sing really off key, but with enthusiasm!"

I love that last part, though I'm not convinced about the off key part. We're always more critical of our own voices. Enthusiasm is the part that matters, and she and her mother have plenty of it.

This also highlights something I think families often get backwards. Sarah and Cynthia are a musical family, and it has nothing to do with anyone having a trained or stage-ready voice or being born with some kind of gift. They are a musical family because they decided to sing together and then kept doing it. That is the whole thing. Any family reading this can make the same decision, and many of you already have without calling it that.

What do you find yourself singing to Olivia right now?

Sarah: "We sing Amazing Grace at bedtime, and, in the early sleep deprived newborn days, my husband and I also made up a song about Olivia to the tune of Frosty the Snowman that we still like singing. She is going to be so confused when the holiday season arrives and everyone is singing her special song with the wrong words."

Cynthia, do you remember a song you sang to Sarah when she was small?

Cynthia: "One of our favorites was Child of Mine by Emmylou Harris and Carole King."

I asked Cynthia one more thing, because a grandmother sees what the rest of us are standing too close to notice. I asked what she wanted Sarah to remember about this stage of Olivia's life.

"I want her to remember how Olivia was obsessed with her, which has been fun for me to see," she said. "Olivia is a very social baby, and I also want Sarah to remember that Olivia's smile, and her full body singing that sounds more like AAAAAH accompanied by a huge wiggle, brought joy to everyone she met, including at music class."

Those of you who have been in Miriam's class know the sound Cynthia is describing. It is not a song you could write down but an entire adorable little body deciding to participate.

It's wonderful to see the music that's moving through this family right now. Cynthia sang Child of Mine to Sarah. Sarah sings Amazing Grace to Olivia, along with a song about Olivia set to a Christmas tune that she and Will invented in the middle of the night, back when they were both too tired to know they were writing anything. In twenty-five years, Olivia may remember these moments and know they make her feel safe and eventually pass them on to her own children.

One side note, as a parent whose children are now both in college, I urge you to record some of your musical moments. Sarah, that means the Frosty song and your mother singing Child of Mine. The rest of you know which songs are yours. You will want to have them.

Creating a musical family is not luck. It is three people deciding to sing in the same room who keep deciding to do it.

This is Sarah's first semester. She doesn't yet know our songs or the names of everyone in her class. None of that matters, because she brought the important part with her. She knows what it feels like to sing with people, and she is handing that legacy to her daughter before Olivia is old enough to know she is being handed anything.

If you are a new parent and you are not sure you belong in a room full of singing families, you do. Come as you are and sing with us.

There is room for your family. Come see what Monday afternoons sound like at mistermikesmusic.com.