In April of 2021, I received a very nice email from someone named John Francisco asking if I’d be interested in chatting about a potential job opportunity to teach a baby music class. I’d taught music to kids! Teenagers! Grownups!….not…..babies. Luckily for me, I had just given birth to my first and only daughter, Rebecca, about six months before this very out-of-the-blue email, so I was a little more baby-friendly than I had been pre-pandemic. I think I responded to Mr. John with “Sure! My daughter loves the Itsy Bitsy Spider!”
My “interview” was bringing Becca to a class at the OG Atlanta location at Urban Pie (shoutout to Urban Pie!! Go eat there!!!), and I was absolutely hooked. The “color” moment rocked my whole world. As someone who felt it was important for my child to know they would be loved no matter how they eventually expressed their gender, I felt incredibly validated. It was a hard-won fight to keep my family from shooting off blue or pink roman candles or cutting into cakes with blue or pink filling. (If you do that…felicidades!!! You do you, boo! I just didn’t want to do that! I’m thrilled for anyone who is *blessed* to have these precious little humans however they choose to welcome them!)
I said “no” to a lot of jobs after I gave birth. I wasn’t sure they would allow me the flexibility to spend as much time as I wanted with my daughter in what was still a very scary time to have a new baby. After attending our first Mister John’s Music class and getting to know Mr. John (who is as lovely and kind as you think he is!) I knew this was the right fit for me.
We didn’t do daycare in those early days, so it was a truly magical experience seeing my daughter interact with other babies. I vividly remember the first time she threw her fist up to “share”! When we did start daycare, her teacher pulled me aside to let me know Becca was doing this weird thing with her fingers whenever they sang their “ABC’s”. I let her teacher know it’s all good, that she was “a Mister John’s kid”.
I firmly believe that Mister John’s Music turns out some of the most empathetic, caring kids because I see my daughter using the lessons she learns in class every day. How many times have we had trouble sharing something just for me to remind her “you know, Becca, some people swear the best treasures are rare…”