By Jonathan Christian
Generational gap between one generation is something that I thought did not have a lot of contrast as the years difference between the two generations was only 10-20 years. But I was proven wrong when I did an interview with my friend Jennifer, the interview that I did with Jennifer was about lullaby. In the interview we talked about her experience with lullaby when she was younger and how lullaby affects her life today in her adulthood and how she carries on the family tradition of singing lullabies to her nieces and nephews. This interview really opened my eyes to how powerful a little thing such as a lullaby that I thought is not important can be.
In the interview, Jennifer told us how her mother would always sing lullabies to her and how it would help her sleep faster. Hearing this in the interview gives me flashbacks to when I was just a little boy and I remembered how my mother would also sing lullabies to me. I remembered how I would feel safe and calm whenever my mom would sing a lullaby beside me whenever I was ready for bed. I think this is the case for everyone, we feel safe whenever we are beside our mom especially when we are younger and I think Jennifer feels the same as she mentioned that she would sleep faster whenever her mom sang lullabies to her.
Jennifer then continues by sharing with us how her experience with her mom singing lullabies to her when she was younger would carry on to her adult life. Moving to the US by herself when she was just 16 years old, she would still sing lullabies to herself to calm herself down and to get rid of the feeling of homesickness. I believe that we all have our coping mechanisms to get through the feeling of homesickness. Being in the same position as Jennifer, moving to the United States when I was only 16 years old, I guess my coping mechanism for my homesickness would be listening to Indonesian music. Listening to music from Indonesia would always make me feel like I am back home.
We continued the interview by talking about her experience singing lullabies to her nephews and nieces.She said that she would often sing lullabies to her nieces and nephews because her sisters would sometimes ask her to take care of them and her sister would ask her to put them to sleep. But, she said that her nieces and nephews would still prefer their own mother to sing them lullaby songs. I think there is a strong bond that a lullaby creates between a mother and their children that all children would prefer their own parents to sing them to bed instead of anyone else, even if the person is close to them they would still prefer their own mother. Although her nieces and nephews prefer their own mother to sing them lullabies, they would still miss their favourite aunty singing and Jennifer would send them voice notes and video call when she is in America.
In the podcast I also asked her, her favourite lullabies growing up. She mentioned that growing up her favourite lullabies that she wants her mother to sing for her every night is an Indonesian lullaby called ‘nina bobo’. ‘Nina bobo’ is an ancient lullaby that was already popular when my parents were kids, Jennifer explains, ‘nina bobo’ is an Indonesian lullaby that parents usually sang to scare their children and make their children sleep faster. Jennifer said that this is her favourite lullaby because that is the lullaby that her mother sang to her every night . In the interview I then asked her to sing a little of her favourite lullaby for us, which then sang a couple verses of her favourite lullaby.
I was shocked when she mentioned that her lullaby was ‘Nina Bobo’ because from stories that I heard from my caretaker when I was younger, ‘Nina Bobo’ has a very dark story and a scary myth behind the lullaby. People say that the song was created by an Indonesian parent back in the 1800s that has a sick girl named Nina that died because of a sickness and the myth says that whenever someone sings this song the ghost of the small girl will appear. When I was younger I would close my ears whenever someone sings this song because it terrified me so much and it came as a surprise when Jennifer said this is her favourite lullaby. I think she never heard of the myth before and that is the reason Nina bobo became her favourite lullaby.
She also brings up that her nephews and nieces favourite lullaby is ‘Baby shark’. Baby shark is a very popular song that is well known to almost all the kids that are born in the 2010s. She told us that her nieces and nephews would always ask her to sing this lullaby for them. It did not come as a surprise to me that Baby shark is their favourite lullaby because whenever I met my smaller cousins and my friend’s younger sibling, they all would say that Baby shark is their favourite song or they were listening to the song when I met them. So that is what I expect as an answer when I ask kids nowadays what their favourite lullaby or song is.
It came as a surprise to me of how big of a contrast it is between Jennifer’s favourite lullaby and her nieces and nephew’s favourite lullaby. Her favourite lullaby is a slow ancient song that was created in the 1800s and her nephew and nieces lullaby is a modern up bear song. I think the reason for such a contrast is because of how the two generations were raised. When me and Jennifer were younger, we were not really given the freedom and were not exposed to songs that are not given by our parents. On the other hand, I think kids that grew up now are given more freedom and they are more exposed to technology and the media compared to when me and Jennifer were kids.
This interview really opened my eyes to how important a lullaby can be to strengthen a bond of a mother and her child. It doesn’t matter who sings the lullaby but in our opinion, our mother’s singing is always the best and it will always be the one we preferred to sing our lullabies at night. Knowing Jennifer and her family for a couple years, I know that she has a pretty strong bond with her nieces and nephews and they are very close. But her nephews and nieces still prefer their mother’s singing than her’s, this shows me that a child and a mother bond is the strongest bond.
