It’s a Beautiful Day in Ms. Rachel’s Neighborhood

We had always told our son: If there’s a grandbaby, we’ll come and help. “I’d need you to be here for three months,” he said. “Absolutely,” we told him. 

And then, finally, a pregnancy and a birth. My wife and I flew to Austin from Milwaukee the day after Nora was born and scooped her into our arms. For three months we lived with her parents and shared the joys and panic and exhaustion of feeding, changing, talking, and playing. We took turns during the day and divided up the night: I had the 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. shift. Somewhere between the cries, coos, laughs, and gibberish, this little girl cast a spell on my wife and me. We decided to move to Austin and be part of her childhood.

We watched her discover her hands and feet and then her ears and nose. We marveled as she rolled over, sat upright, figured out how to crawl, danced on her knees. “We won’t interfere,” we told her parents — but we made a few strong suggestions. Among them: no screen time before 18 months.

Soon after Nora’s first birthday, I noticed there were times when she was sick or wired or resisting sleep, when her parents turned on the big screen TV and our granddaughter kept company with someone named Ms. Rachel (Rachel Griffin Accurso). My wife and I muttered to each other, but sometimes when all else failed, we turned it on ourselves. Nora didn’t just stare: She smiled and laughed and flapped her arms and clapped her hands. She did her version of hand motions to “Wheels on the Bus” and “Sticky, Icky Bubblegum.”

I started doing a little digging. I discovered Ms. Rachel started on this path while working with the speech delay of her own child, wanting to support parents facing similar challenges. She’d been a public school music teacher and also taught students with disabilities. Her YouTube channel offered “Songs for Littles,” “Music Classes,” and Educational Videos, presentations that include singing, play, dance, and support for language development. They incorporate sign language and regular repetition, all while being fun and accessible. Ms. Rachel has more than 15 million subscribers and billions of views of her more than 119 videos on YouTube.

Her enthusiasm and joy became infectious to me as well as Nora. I began to question my dogmatic stance. It seemed obvious that Ms. Rachel’s videos could be a valuable resource for parents of all kinds, including those working with children who have speech delays or autism, for two-parent households with long hours and stressful lives, and certainly for single parents and those with few resources and no time.

I welcomed the racial diversity I was seeing on the show. I was also pleased to see Jules, a non-binary singer and guitar player, as a regular part of the cast. Ms. Rachel proudly celebrates pride month.

What about the screen time thing? The American Academy of Pediatrics  and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control recommend that toddlers under 18 months should have no screen time and that from ages 2 to 5, there should be no more than one hour a day. Even as a grandpa popping in and out of a little girl’s life, I knew that didn’t meet the reality of many households.

I watched Ms. Rachel model learning the alphabet, using letter formation and sounds connected to a word with a picture. The camera focuses on the exaggerated way Ms. Rachel’s lips form the letters.

Nora is still loving the alphabet song she learned months ago. At nearly 2 and a half, she now sings and performs her playlist: “Hop Little Bunnies,” “I’m So Happy,” “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes,” and a host of others.

The most recent video we viewed is called the “Potty Training Special.” It’s paving the way.

I had already been won over to Ms. Rachel as part of our lives. I know she’s a compassionate and loving person. And then I saw her being attacked by right-wing forces, both because of her support for the LGBTQ+ community and for Palestinian children. Right-wing groups like StopAntisemitism have accused her of spreading “Hamas-aligned messages” and asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether Ms. Rachel was being paid by Hamas. She has not flinched nor changed her message in her effort to support Palestinian children and kids throughout the world. 

There is an Instagram video where she proclaimed:

Leaders, be so ashamed of your silence. Be so ashamed that you’ve seen the same images and videos that we’ve all seen but don’t move you to do the right thing. Be so ashamed of your anti-Palestinian racism. Be so ashamed that you don’t see Palestinian people or their children as the same as us. You don’t think their babies like to play peekaboo and don’t smile when they see someone they love? Your constituents are begging and pleading for you to say something and you just ignore us. Be so ashamed that you’re putting money, power, your career, and reputation before precious children of God.

I saw a YouTube of Ms. Rachel hugging, singing, and dancing with a Palestinian child, Rahaf Ayed, a double amputee from Gaza. After watching a video of Rahaf, Ms. Rachel flew Rahaf and her mother, Israa, to New York. The piece they created together is a profound show of unity with the children and the Palestinian people of Gaza, where the largest group of child amputees on Earth live.

“Silence was not a choice for me,” she told Mehdi Hasan. “I think it should be controversial to not say anything. . . . The idea that caring for a group of children in an emergency situation means you don’t care about other (Israeli) children is false.”

By welcoming us into her neighborhood, Ms. Rachel has brought joy and support to kids and also to those of us raising them in an ever more troubled and dangerous world. The courage shown by Ms. Rachel is an example to us all. She teaches us that solidarity with all children cannot be compromised. And if Ms. Rachel can talk about Gaza in age-appropriate ways with toddlers — then teachers of all ages can find ways to bring Palestinian humanity into the classroom.