“Bob! Bob! Bob!”
“What are you talking about kid?”
Jamie and I were the only two people in the birthday card aisle at Jewel on a recent evening.
There was no one around us. And as I scanned the vicinity of the cards he pointed at excitedly, there it was, plain as day – a yellow sponge that lives under the sea, featured prominently on the front of the card.
I had no idea he knew who that was.
As a new dad, there were movies and shows I couldn’t wait to share with my son, such as the Looney Tunes cartoons, Inspector Gadget, or the Peanuts. Jamie seemed like the perfect excuse to re-engage with some older classics from my childhood.
Conversely, there were a few movies or shows I didn’t want to suffer through. Watching Frozen, Barney or SpongeBob Squarepants seemed like their own unique brand of parental torture. But then, I’ve written about my limited tolerance for some children’s movies in the past.
Reality and well-placed intentions have a funny way of not lining up. There is an amazing level of outside influence on the entertainment that even a 2-year-old consumes. For example, a 30-second SpongeBob commercial during a different television program could be all it takes to trigger an obsession.
We’ve seen Frozen more times than I would care to recount. The phrase “Let it Go” triggers an anxiety in me that makes my brow sweat and my hands reflexively cover my ears. It triggers an urge to go listen to some music, ANY music to knock that egregious earworm out from between my ears once and for all.
I don’t think he’s watched much Barney, but he does have a purple dinosaur puzzle. “Always avoid purple dinosaurs” just seems like a sage piece of fatherly advice. Like I said, I have no idea how he knows SpongeBob.
Purple dinosaurs and yellow sponges make it hard to do your job as a parent, instilling a proper suspension of disbelief. Some of these children’s characters are beyond ridiculous.
Maybe the people in our society who are concerned about marijuana as a gateway drug should refocus their energy onto children’s entertainment. Because watching something like SpongeBob is going to leave an impressionable mind with some crazy ideas.
“No kid, you cannot go live in a pineapple under the sea. As a matter of fact pineapples cannot live under the sea.”
I shouldn’t have to explain these things. Not to a 2-year-old. Not ever.
As a consumer of movies or books, I’m personally interested in realistic characters and plausible plotlines. For these reasons, I’m really not much of a science fiction or Star Wars fan. I saw the movies. I thought they were all right, but possibly some of the most overrated films in history.
Most children’s entertainment also fails to meet these standards. So for children’s entertainment, I simply ask for clever, or a low-key catchy that doesn’t make you want to break something.
I selfishly hoped I could have more control over what Jamie was exposed to for a bit longer. I know that once he’s in school and around friends he’ll have a number of other influences.
In the meantime, we quickly grabbed a birthday card and hightailed it out of the store, and no, not the SpongeBob card.
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