Say it can’t be so!

The following took place after school today:

“Did you watch ‘The Fairly OddParents’ when you were a kid?” Cody asked.

“No, that show wasn’t invented when I was a kid,” I said.

“So, what DID you watch?” he asked, clearly awestruck by the fact that this particular cartoon wasn’t on when I was young.

“‘Scooby-Doo,’ ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks,’ ‘Tom & Jerry,'” I said, trying to name some cartoons he had heard of.

“You watched ‘Tom and Jerry’?” he giggled incredulously. A newly devoted fan of the always-riotous T & J, Cody had just ordered his very own DVD with his birthday money and spent the past weekend watching it over and over.

“Well, yeah,” I said defensively.

“Hey, Logan!” Cody yelled. “Mom watched ‘Tom and Jerry’ when she was a kid!! Do you know how OLD it must be?”

I’m sure I didn’t look very pleased at this point. It really would have behooved Cody to say something complimentary to make me feel better, but being 7 and completely oblivious to my sensitivity to age, as well as the steaming look he was receiving, he ended with,

“Hey, Mom? My teacher knows more than you do.”

Grrrrr.

Have your kids given you any similar “compliments?”

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Commercialization

Once upon a time, our TV only received three channels, the most watched of which was the blissfully commercial-free PBS. Since I don’t watch much TV myself, not having 100 different channels to pick from was just fine with me. Even better, my daughters had no clue who SpongeBob or other non-PBS-related characters were, and since they never saw commercials, they rarely asked for specific toys or cereal with SpongeBob emblazoned on the box.

Enter the era of my sons, who have had a multitude of channels from which to pick since they can remember. Hello advertisement-ridden Nickelodeon and Disney. Goodbye PBS. Gone are the refreshing commercial-free days of old; now, my children are inundated with ads for anything a kid could ever possibly dream about.

When we go shopping, the boys beg me for Dora macaroni and cheese, Diego toothbrushes and anything adorned with Spiderman. The character stuff always costs a lot more too. I say no to the mac and cheese because not only is it more expensive, with much less in the box than the regular kind to boot, I just don’t buy it on principle.

One day we were at the store and we went past the toilet paper. “Look, Mom,” said then-5-year-old Cody. “That’s Charmin Ultra Strong and that’s Charmin Ultra Soft.” I stared at him, speechless. He was right. I asked him how he knew which was which and he said, “Because I saw it on TV.” Great.

Though I would undoubtedly have a mini-riot on my hands, I’ve been considering pulling the plug on the variety of TV stations we have and going back to the bunny ears. The world is already full of items everywhere that advertisers convince us we need without being bombarded with more advertisements in our own homes. Much of it is so ridiculous and pointless too, and watching my kids coveting a toy dog that “swims”  or a doll that wets itself almost makes me ill when I think of all the children in the world who don’t even have a roof over their heads or enough food.

We have so much in our country. So much, we take what we do have for granted every single day. Pointing this out to small children is pretty much fruitless though; all they know is the world around them, and, both fortunately and unfortunately, that knowledge just doesn’t expand to kids who are dying of starvation or disease. Kids who would be thrilled to have the bread crusts my youngest just threw in the trash, let alone a toy dinosaur on which they could ride.

Maybe it’s just time for some giving. I want my kids to grow up to be compassionate, caring, generous adults with a heart for those less fortunate. To help instill those qualities, I think this year I’ll have them use their allowances to put together a Christmas gift for a child who otherwise would not get one. I really want to get them out of this “gotta-have” mindset, as popular and prominent as it is in our society.

How do you help your kids with their toy-lust? Does your family do charity work such as volunteering at a soup kitchen or helping sort clothes and collect food for the needy? What are some ways during this holiday season that your family could focus on others?

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The far-reaching influence of the media

I wrote the following for my local newspaper’s editorial column in 2005, but it’s one of my favorites, so I thought I’d go ahead and post it here (it’s on my website too). Wish I could still say I’m 30!

 

 

Ahhh . . . Remember the good old days? The days when families would gather around the TV and watch the evening sitcoms without fear of profanity, nudity or other sights inappropriate for children; when a movie that was rated PG-13 was actually okay for thirteen year olds? Forget about TV shows on public stations with nudity like “NYPD Blue;” they were unheard of. And the PG-13 movies we have today? They would have been rated R when I was a kid. Wait a minute, was this really so long ago?

 

The fact that I am only thirty, yet have seen such a rapid decline in the morality of our society and the media throughout my relatively short lifetime, tells a really sad story. It’s not like I’m some old codger, reminiscing about the “innocent” days gone by, or even that I’m ultra-conservative, but I find myself becoming increasingly offended with the images and attitudes portrayed in the media. It is said that art (in this case, the media) reflects reality, but these days it’s more that the media hugely influences our reality.

 

Gone are the days of the family sitcom, the ones my family used to watch, like “The Cosby Show,” “Perfect Strangers,” or “Home Improvement.” I can’t say for certain right now, since I haven’t actually watched a sitcom in over a year, but last time I checked on the public networks (besides PBS), there was not one show that I would let my kids see. And this is supposed to be primetime, “family” time. Yeah, Urkel was cheesy, but at least our parents didn’t have to worry about what we were watching, or have to explain any adult situations to us.

 

The TV rarely even comes on in our house anymore, unless it’s PBS or a DVD. Since we don’t have cable, our options are limited – no Nickelodeon or Disney Channel for us. Frankly, I like it that way. There’s less chance of the kids seeing something they shouldn’t. Right now they are addicted to “Little House on the Prairie” on DVD; it’s family-oriented, entertaining, clean, and teaches great values, which is a lot more than most TV shows these days.

 

I used to scoff at my parents’ and grandparents’ complaints about the “bad” attitudes and the increase of violence and sex in the media. They were just old fuddy-duddies who needed to get with the times and lighten up. Then I had my own children, implicit media consumers, and my entire view changed. Suddenly, the “garbage in, garbage out” line my parents were always saying started to, gulp, actually make sense.

 

The older my kids get, the more incensed I am with the shallow attitudes and situations the media portrays regarding sex, beauty and violence. Beauty is often depicted as the most important virtue one can have and sex is shown as purely casual, rarely with consequences.

 

Is it any wonder that teenage pregnancy is so rampant, kids bring guns to school, Internet porn is so (scarily) accessible, and increasingly younger and younger girls have eating disorders? These are impressionable, malleable, innocent minds that should only have to be thinking about childish things like school and the upcoming football game, not worrying about matters we adults encounter. They have plenty of time for that later, when they actually ARE adults. Why are we making our kids grow up so fast?

 

Sometimes I wish I could take my kids and move to a deserted island (are there any left?) where the tentacles of the media couldn’t reach them. They could just be kids, playing, learning, and laughing. All the joys of childhood in its purest form could still be theirs instead of the dark realities of the world beginning to seep in at a far too young age, ruining their innocence and stealing the short time that they already have as children.

 

There’s a reason why half of marriages end up in divorce, why kids are having sex earlier and earlier, why there are so many STDs, affairs, drugs and lives devastated. In a world that is increasingly becoming a proponent of self-absorption, it’s no surprise that immorality is epidemic.

 

Uh oh, I’m starting to sound like my mother.

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