There’s a woman in my house every day who my toddler loves almost as much as he loves me, and her name is Ms Rachel. If you don’t spend much time with preschool-aged children, Ms Rachel – some people mistakenly say Miss, but the Ms is important, I feel – is probably not a name that will ring a bell. To parents and grandparents and other caregivers, however, she has become the closest thing that we have to a cult figure. You see, Ms Rachel is an angel, a goddess who has bestowed upon us her supreme gifts for entertaining and educating children. I have seen her referred to as “the world’s babysitter”; people jokingly offer to Venmo her cash for all the “childcare” she provides in keeping toddlers occupied. And it’s true that she has a unique talent when it comes to entrancing children, but the content she makes is so much more than that.
Ms Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Accurso, started her Songs for Littles series of videos because she was frustrated by the lack of media resources for her son, who had a speech delay and said his first word at two years and eight months. As a public preschool music teacher with a background in music education who is married to a Broadway music director and composer, she was incredibly well placed to become the resource she knew other parents were desperately searching for. Making herself the star and donning a now-famous pair of dungarees and a pink headband, she deliberately borrowed techniques from her son’s early intervention speech therapist to create her videos. As of this week, Ms Rachel has clocked up 8.6bn total views. In short, to many of us, and our kids, she has become a superstar.
