I've said this exact thing to my wife a few times since our 2 year old was born. Wouldn't be caught dead singing before. Now? I'm somewhere above terrible and below bad. A huge improvement.

I never felt like I got good at singing or wanted to do more of it, but I do remember feeling really self-conscious when I started reading aloud to my son. It just felt so unnatural.

But I got over that pretty quickly and really grew to love reading to my kids. And I got pretty good at it too — I could do Seuss at pace without messing up the words. I really miss it. I think for Father's Day this year, I'm gonna make them sit down next to me on the sofa while I read Cars and Trucks and Things That Go or maybe Giant Jam Sandwich to them.

I started taking weekly voice lessons after singing in choirs for years. I wanted to have a better chance at getting solos and to get over my stage fright. It has been so immensely satisfying to work really hard at something as an adult with no plans to make money from it or do anything but get personal enjoyment and satisfaction out of it. Depending on your vocal range, my teacher actually said you get better *with age*. She was speaking specifically to alto voices, but I think sometimes you age into your voice and it just gets richer as time goes on.

I'd even go so far as to say that I can spontaneously make up songs on the spot and riff around! It is a great improvement - all due to a couple of kids. Thanks for bringing this up - I've had it in the back of my mind for a long time but haven't ever expressed it.

My boy and I have been singing together since his Wheels on the Bus era. He's nine now and still loves to sing. I let him pick the songs he wants to learn lyrics to and we sing them over and over...so my voice has gotten infinitely better. And he's in a couple choirs now, so I guess this all had a salutary effect.

He's really into David Bowie at the moment and knows all the lyrics to Space Oddity and Life on Mars. His friends think he's nuts because not a single person in his class has any idea who David Bowie is...

When I was younger, I listened to a lot of Depeche Mode but haven't listened to them in a long time. On a road trip by myself recently, I decided to see if I could recall the lyrics to one of their albums so I put it on and sang loudly along while I drove up the winding coast. I actually remembered more than I thought! It felt amazing - perfect therapy!

Ohmygoodness, yes! I used to be soooo self-conscious about singing, now I sing constantly, with abandon, and make up random songs about everything!

Most-requested songs for me to sing to my kids:
My Girl - The Temptations
(Sitting on) The Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding
Yellow Submarine - The Beatles
The Night Before - The Beatles
Penny Lane - The Beatles
Plus a song my grandmother wrote called "Where Did You Come From, Baby Dear?"

I studied operatic vocal performance, so I never felt self-conscious about my voice as a mother. However, I found a new joy in singing loudly and off-key while dancing badly around the kitchen, singing in a hoarse whisper at 2 am when E woke up, and rewriting Joni Mitchell songs (blasphemy!) to fit the moment. I had spent my entire adolescent and young adult life focused on vocal perfection. As a mother, I cut loose— and I even switched musical genres to reflect this shift. While parenting often can come with an unwelcome share of shame, it can also liberate us of so much of our self-consciousness and sense of propriety.

PS One of the funniest and sweetest things I ever overheard my daughter say about me was, "My mom is a famous singer, but she is the worst at cooking rice." Ahem, I'm not famous anywhere beyond the bar I used to sing at every week, but yeah, I was very bad at cooking rice until I got an instant pot.

Cohen, Anna ternheim, but mostly cohen.. lots of cohen. Every evening for the kids for a long time :)