Free to Be You and Me

We've been listening to "Free to Be You and Me" lately. Margrethe and I both listened to it as kids and thought Dora would enjoy it. In retrospect, I'm kind of surprised we had it in my house, although I seem to remember that we got it from the library. Margrethe's parents were lawyers for Legal Aid when she was a kid, so it's logical that they would have it. Mine both volunteered for the Navy.

Listening to songs written in 1972 as an adult in 2004 is an interesting experience. Ninty percent of it is about gender roles and identity, which wouldn't seem to be such a rich subject for a kid's record. I was also mildly amazed to hear Alan Alda's voice on some of the numbers. At the time I had no idea who he was; turns out he has a very nice Broadway voice.

On the one hand, there's been so much progress in internalizing some of the ideas of the songs--women being able to have any kind of job they want, for example--that the whole thing seems hopelessly dated. And yet "William's Doll" seems as far-fetched now as it did when I was a kid. The whole premise of the song is that five-year-old William wants to play with a doll because one day he'll be a father, and fathers need to know how to care for babies. Fathers taking care of babies is definitely established in American society (or at least in my house) but I bet you there aren't two boys in this whole country who are asking their parents for a doll so they can practice being a daddy. It just ain't done.