Taylor Swift has grown up in front of our eyes. She hit the music scene as a teenager singing about high school, but now she's a woman in her 30s. Naturally, her song content has grown along with her, and she has some more intense themes, lyrics, and performances these days. But just because her music and concerts may have gotten racier in some ways, Taylor Swift is still a great role model for children. Even Travis Kelce's brother Jason Kelce agrees, calling Taylor an "unbelievable role model for young women across the globe," according to People magazine.
Many parents seem to fall into Jason's category of appreciating Taylor's positive influence — because there have been a lot of kids spotted at her various Eras Tour concert stops. She even has a part in the show where she gives one lucky fan her hat, and that fan is usually a young kid.
But for any parents who are wary that Taylor's grown too much to be a good influence on our little ones, here are 18 reasons why she's actually one of the best celebs our kids could look up to.
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She's outspoken against bullying.
In 2014, when Taylor saw a young fan named Hannah leave a lengthy Instagram comment about being bullied, the singer took time to thoughtfully respond. According to Today, the girl wrote, in part, "Taylor, why are people at school so mean? Why do they always try to bring me down? I'm sitting here crying while I write this." Taylor responded with an over 300-word message that read, in part:
“People cut other people down for entertainment, amusement, out of jealousy, because of something broken inside them. Or for no reason at all … You’re a target because you live your life loudly and boldly … Let them keep living in the darkness and we’ll keep walking in the sunlight. Forever on your side, Taylor.”
Not only did she take time to compose such a lovely message, but it's applicable to so many young people who look up to her. She helped many more people that day than just Hannah.
She stands up for women.
Taylor has been a vocal advocate for women in her music, like in her song "The Man," but also in her everyday life. For instance, according to CBS News, in 2017, she took a man who had groped her to trial and won — having sued him for a just one symbolic dollar to make a point.
According to Entertainment Weekly, she hoped by pursuing the charge and holding her assaulter accountable, she could "serve as an example to other women who may resist publicly reliving similar outrageous and humiliating acts."
She's an LGBTQ+ ally.
Taylor most notably made her allyship known with the song "You Need to Calm Down," which condemned the online hate that LGBTQ+ people can experience. But she's also donated to LGBTQ+ organization GLAAD and written to her local Tennessee senator encouraging further equality protections for members of the LGBTQ+ community, reported Rolling Stone.
Plus, during one of her Pride Month Eras Tour stops in 2023, Billboard reported that she made a speech about wanting her shows to be a safe space for the marginalized community.
She's big on artists' rights.
The singer has historically stood up for other artists, even as she got so big a lot of the issues she was fighting for didn't affect her as much. According to BBC, in 2015 she spoke out against Apple Music for not paying artists for streams during users' free trial periods. A day after she initially refused to let the platform stream her music, the company reversed its decision and agreed to pay artists their royalties even during free trials.
She's also been vocal about the importance of letting singers own the masters of the music that they write. One could argue that these stands are self-serving, but the truth is she's making the music industry better for all the small artists who can't afford to take the public stands she does.
She's a supportive friend.
There are few people more supportive than Taylor. She's often the only one standing for musical performances at award shows and she's usually the first to start clapping and the last to stop. She sings along and shows her support for all of her fellow musicians, especially her close friends.
Rolling Stone reported that she traveled to the Coachella music festival for the first time in years to catch the sets of her good friends Ice Spice and Jack Antonoff's band Bleachers. She goes above and beyond to be there for her fellow performers.
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She was honest about her eating disorder.
It takes a lot of courage to be as vulnerable as Taylor on such a public platform. In her Netflix documentary Miss Americana, the singer spoke about a period in her life during her 1989 album era where she'd dealt with disordered eating. "I thought that I was supposed to feel like I was going to pass out at the end of a show, or in the middle of it," she said, per Variety. "Now I realize, no, if you eat food, have energy, get stronger, you can do all these shows."
Taylor now stands as a role model to young people of how it's more important to be strong than skinny. She regularly performs three-and-a-half hour shows on the Eras Tour, which feels like it would have been impossible in her 1989 era.
She's come a long way, and her honesty and positive impact will be felt by her young fans who may be struggling with similar body issues.
She has amazing business prowess.
Parents of little girls especially should love Taylor as a role model because she's such an entrepreneur. In this day, a lot of celebrities are famous just because they're famous — but they're not necessarily doing a whole lot. Meanwhile, Taylor has a billion dollar net worth thanks to her various entrepreneurial efforts.
A great example of this was how she made her Eras Tour movie happen by negotiating her own deal directly with AMC Theaters. By bypassing a distributor, she got to keep 57% of the revenue, according to IndieWire.
That's a boss move, and she's always hustling like that.
She made food bank donations along her 'Eras Tour' stops.
As much as Taylor may make in revenue, she's also generous at giving back. All along her American Eras Tour dates, she donated thousands of dollars to food banks in cities that she performed in. According to CNN, some of those food banks saw additional donations increase in response to hers.
So not only did Taylor donate, but she motivated others to do so as well.
She gave her equipment drivers bonuses.
Taylor also took care of her own crew following the US Eras Tour leg. When she finished her American tour dates in August 2023, TMZ reported that she gave each of her equipment truck drivers $100,000 bonuses. That equaled to about $5 million for all 50 truckers.
She got water to dehydrated concert goers.
During a particularly hot concert in Brazil, Taylor became quickly alerted to how overheated people in the crowd were getting. She spent the rest of the show performing but also keeping an eye out for anyone who needed water, and distributing bottles to those in need mid-song.
She met with a dead fan's family.
Tragically, one fan died at the overly hot Brazil show. According to USA Today, Ana Benavides passed out during Taylor's opening Lover era and died later that evening. Taylor was shaken by the news, posting to Instagram afterwards, "I can't believe I'm writing these words but it is with a shattered heart that I say we lost a fan earlier tonight before my show. I can't even tell you how devastated I am by this."
Although she couldn't bring Ana back, Taylor did make sure to meet with Ana's family and reportedly invited them to watch another show in her VIP tent, per USA Today. She also postponed the next night's concert until the hot weather got better.
She acknowledges mistakes and grows from them.
Fans long wondered how Taylor Swift would handle a misogynistic lyric in her "Better Than Revenge" song when it came time to re-record it. And though it would have been easy for Taylor to leave the lyric intact to preserve the authenticity of her re-records, she decided it was more important to reflect her growth as a feminist.
She changed the line from, "She's better known for the things that she does on the mattress," to, "He was a moth to the flame, she was holding the matches."
The lyric change blames her ex for straying instead of painting the woman as nothing more than who she sleeps with. In a perfect world, Taylor wouldn't have written the lyric in the first place, but it's great to see her recognize her errors in judgment and amend them.
She encourages people to vote.
When Taylor posted on Instagram in September 2023 to remind people to register to vote, 35,000 registrations came in, according to NPR. Talk about having a massive influence and using it the right way. She also didn't try to influence how people voted, instead just hoping that they would engage in the political process at all.
"I've been so lucky to see so many of you guys at my US shows recently. I've heard you raise your voices, and I know how powerful they are," she wrote on her Instagram Stories. "Make sure you're ready to use them in our elections this year!"
She cleans up after herself.
The singer is not a spoiled billionaire by any means. When she went to the Kansas City Chiefs football games, fans often spotted her collecting extra cups and trash and disposing of it to lessen the workload of the stadium employees. Did she have to do that? No. But she was clearly raised to clean up after herself, and she still does even as a mega pop star.
She's a big tipper.
Although she tried to help out the stadium workers by doing some cleaning, she also recognized that she didn't do all their work for them — and so she tipped them extremely well. According to one worker who spoke to Buffalo's ABC 7 News, Taylor handed her a $100 tip and took a selfie with her. "She's a sweetie pie. Very down-to-earth," ticket taker Jerris Rainey said.
She shakes off the haters.
The "Shake It Off" song is a great motto for kids to learn. In life, people are going to say or do mean things to our children, and not letting that get to them is so important.
Taylor keeps that attitude even today, telling Time magazine recently that she didn't care if a few "dads, Brads, and Chads" were mad about her NFL screen time, she was going to show up to support her boyfriend, Travis Kelce.
She's stayed humble her whole career.
It would be easy for Taylor to have changed as she grew in popularity, but she's stayed humble throughout her career — always attributing her success back to her fans. Even as she won her 13th Grammy in 2024, she dedicated the victory to her fan base and announced her 11th album as a special treat for them.
"I know that the way that the Recording Academy voted is a direct reflection of the passion of the fans," she said. "So I want to say thank you to the fans by telling you a secret … that my brand-new album comes out April 19th. It's called The Tortured Poets Department."
She understands her role.
In 2014, Taylor talked to Time magazine about being a role model, something she thoroughly embraced. "The idea that you're living your life and it's impacting other people, some of whom are very young, some of whom are in their most impressionable times and they’re discovering the music … I think that that's kind of exciting."
She knows her power, and she wields it thoughtfully. That's the hallmark of a great role model.
