It’s January 2025, and chances are you’ve recently thought about Baby New Year—that iconic image of a cherubic little one donning a top hat and sash, symbolizing rebirth and renewal. But this year is special regarding babies another reason: it marks the arrival of a brand-new generation—Generation Beta! These are the first humans born into a world infused with AI, and their generation will span from 2025 to 2039.
With celebrations still in the air and a dash of baby fever, two friends couldn’t help but chat about—you guessed it—baby stories! While all of our current babies belong to Generation Z , we decided to channel our experience and share some inspiration for the moms who will bring Gen Beta into the world: the top five songs from each of our “Labor Playlists.” These songs helped us through a combined total of six labors, acting as our soundtracks for suffering and celebration alike. We hope they’ll help Gen Beta moms set the tone they want for their motherhood journeys.
LuElla’s Top 5:
- “Survivor”: Destiny’s Child
With my first child, I had no idea what to expect—and he still keeps me guessing. I remember sitting by the hospital window, tears streaming, not just worried about the next few hours of labor but about the rest of my life. Enter Beyoncé, the queen of main character energy. Whenever I played Survivor, I felt like I could handle anything, be it in the next few hours or the next 18 years.
2. “The Middle”: Jimmy Eat World
This song is pure fun. That chorus of “everything’ll be all right” became a labor mantra! Plus, when you’re a mom-to-be, there’s all this advice about what to expect and what you should do (a là to get or not get the epidural!) and the idea that it doesn’t matter if it’s “good enough for someone else” rang true to my soul. It only has to be good enough for you and your baby.
3. “Jesus Take the Wheel”: Carrie Underwood
This song holds a special place in my heart. Carrie is from Checotah, Oklahoma—a small town near where my husband grew up. While the songs above are upbeat, labor involves a lot of waiting, and this was one of the slower tunes that helped me feel grounded. As a Christian, I found comfort in being reminded I wasn’t in control of the process—and that’s okay. It’s a humbling yet reassuring realization, especially for someone like me who may or may not have fainted after insisting to the nurses that I was perfectly fine!
4. “Bubble Toes”: Jack Johnson
I’m from South Carolina: beach music is my favorite! Every time I hear the words “bubble toes,” I think of chunky baby toes in sand with water splashing on them, and I smile! This was another one I listened to during the long hours of waiting—mainly during my very long, second labor while my husband snoozed next to me—and I remember thinking this second time I would try to be like the “jellyfish” and go “with the flow.”
5. “You Belong with Me”: Taylor Swift
It’s rare for me to write anything these days without mentioning Taylor, so it’s no surprise my daughter has grown up a Swiftie. I remember singing this to her when she was in my tummy, rubbing the spot where she had kicked or where I imagined her head or feet were. Each time I sang, “You belong with me,” I thought about her growing up surrounded by people who “understand” her. And, let me tell you: my daughter today has a smile that “can light up the whole room.”
Dixie’s Top 5:
1. “How Can I Keep From Singing?”: Pauline T./Robert Lowry
This folk hymn had always seemed a little drippy to me before I became a mother. Yet when I came across it again a week or so before my second child was born, I saw it with new eyes. Each descriptive line combines a metaphor of travail with a prayer for hope, peace, and joy in God’s presence in times of hardship. “No storm can shake my inmost calm/While to this rock I’m clinging” or “I hear the real, though far-off hymn/That hails God’s new creation”–sounds like childbirth to me! Or at least what mothers seek while laboring toward birth (the inmost calm is the hard part!). Still, I found that singing this song through my contractions helped me relax and pray while my little one was coming. (I have yet to find a recording of this song that I really like –this is one to sing yourself, if you can.)
2 “In the Bleak Midwinter”: Christina Rossetti/Gustav Holst
My fourth baby was born just a few weeks before Christmas, so this British Christmas carol seemed just right to me when I was preparing to welcome my sweet daughter. Its beautiful reminder that the most important baby ever born came in the midst of hardship–even bleakness–speaks strongly to a laboring mother. Even more powerful is the hymn’s concluding sentiment: that when we feel we have nothing else to give, we can still give our hearts.
3. “Lead Kindly Light”: John Henry Newman
Yes, you are sensing a theme here. Though labor is exciting, it is also exhausting and painful and it demands much of a woman who is already depleted from nine months of pregnancy. Newman wrote this poem (there are many different tunes to which it is sung) when he was dangerously ill in a foreign country, as his prayer for hope in times of darkness. “Keep Thou my feet,” he writes. “I do not ask to see/The distant scene/One step enough for me.” When you’re trying to take things one contraction at a time, this is a helpful song indeed.
4. “Sweet Afton”: Robert Burns/Nickel Creek
This song is incredibly soothing. I first listened to it when I was very ill during my first pregnancy, and it carried me through many days of sickness and anxiety. It is lovely in labor, too, encouraging the mind and body to “flow gently” in the manner of a lullaby for the baby-on-the-way. The lyrics are from a poem by Robert Burns, whose poetry evokes memory and emotion with both power and compassion.
5. “The Sea Must Have An Ending”: Coope, Boyes, and Simpson
What can I say? A woman in labor needs music that speaks to homecoming, peace, and purpose while also acknowledging hardship. As we know, folk music does this better than any other genre, and sailors know something about struggling homeward and the call of the sea both. Labor, too, is a journey, and “homeward is our dream/For the sea must have an ending,” indeed. And yet like the sailors in the song, many women are only back on “solid ground” so long before we start gazing wistfully at other people’s newborn babies and wondering if we’ll ever get to do it again. Labor: a trial, a journey, and like motherhood itself, an irreplaceable gift.
As we wrote this list, it reminded us not only of our time during labor and delivery, but of all the irreplaceable moments we’ve had since. Far from remaining just memories of labor and delivery, these songs took on new meaning as we changed and grew alongside our children. What music will fill this role for Gen Beta babies and their mothers? Will Gen Z moms still treasure timeless classics like we did, mixed with fresh beats? Will it be all AI-generated? What songs did our friends fall in love with their babies to? What songs guided our own mothers as they fell in love with us?
A new generation is on the horizon, beginning in 2025. We can’t wait to cherish the songs that are yet to be sung and the memories that are yet to be made, trusting that motherhood will always provide a new, love-filled soundtrack for each succeeding generation.