Curate shared family playlists

When my elder child turned 13, I dipped my toe into this by asking him to make me a playlist of songs he thought I’d like. It was fantastic, but I realized I wanted it to go both ways, so we came up with an approach for our whole family (at that time, two 40–something parents, a 13yo kid, a 9yo kid).

At the start of each month, I create a collaborative playlist in Spotify where we all get to add two songs. No rules except that!

They request to listen to the playlist in the car all month (eight songs is usually the perfect length for an afternoon of errands), get excited to share current faves with us, and are surprisingly tolerant of our mom-and-dad tastes. I’ve had real deep nostalgia in choosing songs that I feel are important for them to know (the first time I added Tori Amos!), and wow, have I listened to a lot of Japanese vocaloids in the last year or two (a whole thing, a teen could explain it to you if you don’t know).

I love music so much and grew up with parents who didn’t listen to it much — it feels so satisfying to have this one little routine to connect us through these possibly tumultuous years (those kids are now 11 and almost 15).

Also, we keep one comprehensive playlist of all the songs so far, and… that shit is full of bangers!

PS you can do this with adults too, be they family or friends or colleagues!