Television

My son Levi, much to my frustration, has never been a big TV kid. For years, I’d put on an episode of Paw Patrol or a newish Disney movie, but nothing seemed to stick. Either he’d come to me halfway through to report he was bored or he’d be entertained enough to finish but would never request a second viewing or talk about it afterward.

I attributed this to a personality quirk or insufficient attention span, until the day, when he was 7, that I showed him Gene Wilder’s 1971 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Now this “family movie” he loved. Same thing with The Wizard of Oz (1939). And then with an old children’s TV show, Pee-wee’s Playhouse (1986–90).

Or maybe the difference is that you put on Paw Patrol and left the room while instead sitting with him to watch Willy Wonka and PeeWee.

Back in the 1980s—the era of children’s media that I, a person born in 1979, am most nostalgic about—children’s television filled Saturday- and Sunday-morning time slots that otherwise held little value for networks.

It just so happens that he only likes all this media created decades before he was born? Or perhaps he likes spending time with his parent and this is all that his parent likes to watch?

I agree that letting kids figure things out for themselves is a healthy thing. Some of the quotes from this article remind me of Jonathan Haidt's 'The Anxious Generation', in which he encouraged parents to let their children go outside and have real adventures, filled with danger, conflict, negotiation, etc, instead of experiencing this stuff secondhand through a screen.

However, the beginning of the article annoyed me a bit:

My son Levi, much to my frustration, has never been a big TV kid. For years, I’d put on an episode of Paw Patrol or a newish Disney movie, but nothing seemed to stick. Either he’d come to me halfway through to report he was bored or he’d be entertained enough to finish but would never request a second viewing or talk about it afterward.

I attributed this to a personality quirk or insufficient attention span, until the day, when he was 7...

Was it really so bad that your 7-year-old son displayed little interest in TV? Do kids really need to be exposed to screens to that extent, at that age? The author didn't go into further details about what their kid actually likes to do, but surely this is a chance to encourage them to do something other than sitting in front of a screen? I know this is projection from me, but it just smells like classic selfish, lazy Gen X/older millennial parenting where getting your kids addicted to a screen from an early age means more time for yourself. Maybe the author is a big fan of storytelling on the screen, in which case I can understand their frustration in not being able to share their hobby with their child, but the kid is 7...there is plenty of time for them to grow up and discover the joys of film and TV for themselves. You don't need to desperately try to force it because you're worried your kid has a "personality quirk".

I wonder how the author feels about Bluey. It seems like such a breath of fresh air in an otherwise dreck-filled modern genre.

My 3 year old loves mister rogers more then the new daniel tiger stuff. I think the model trolley is more real to him than the cartoon, idk.

Has anyone notice how much ALL TV has changed?

This is some of the dumbest shit on parenting I've read in a while.

I agree with this guy's kids on being tired of the clinical edutainment of today's media, but in my case it's media for adults. I feel the people producing media today are so focused on tailoring the unambiguous Aesop moral fable of their story, it becomes very hard to believe these characters have any life outside of what the script requires them to do.

Different kids like different things. Sometimes the same kids like different things. Kids are people and have opinions.

This article also seems to hinge on the idea that consumerism is the same as it was in the 20th century, and it just isn't.

When I was a kid in the 80s and 90s, they made the toys first. There'd be a villain that showed up in exactly one episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and they'd already have a toy for it at Toys R Us.

Now my kids are three seasons deep into Spidey and His Amazing Friends, and they never even really made toys for two of the three villains that have been recurring since season 1.

My kids got into Super Kitties and we couldn't buy them anything, not even a book, for over a year.

The Gabby's Dollhouse movie came out less than a month ago, and the store shelves are completely empty of merchandise that was available earlier this year. Gabby Lego sets? Gone. The dollhouse and rooms? Not even space for it on the shelf of my local Target.

They could learn something from the 90s.

I remember the day i heard the words Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Blew my mind.

Paw Patrol

He knows copaganda when he sees it.

Good for him. Now put on your GI Joe cartoons.

On the other hand, a lot of the weird shit from the 80s and 90s was... pretty weird. Ever watch the Brave Little Toaster as an adult? It's a bad acid trip. And I remember hating Disney's Pinnochio (though that was from the 40s, very much a product of its time).

I agree that there's value in simple fun without the burden of instruction--I'm guessing that's part of what made SpongeBob so successful in an age where that type of humor was becoming increasingly rare.

That being said, my kids don't seem to feel that weight as much. Daniel Tiger is a favorite for them, and it's been super helpful for teaching emotional intelligence (something my generation wasn't taught at all). I'm curious to see how their tastes change once they get into school and start seeing learning as work.

Kinda fucks you up to learn about good and bad in theory, then see how much different reality is in application.