Kill Your Television

Our children still don't watch a lot of television, which for the most part makes me very happy.  They'll maybe watch 10-20 minutes of cartoons once or twice a week while we tackle some household projects.*  I sometimes wonder if we are doing a disservice to our children by not having them watch more television.  I'm not crazy, hear me out.  Twins are often slower to develop language skills than singletons.  Sometimes this is because they are born early and are catching up, other times it's because parents are so busy trouble-shooting that they have less time to interact and communicate verbally with their children.**  Enter in the twin factor, when the twin who is speaking more first starts trying to talk for their sibling (Molly) and you can run into some speech issues.

We take time to read to our children every night before bed time, sing to them, expose them to music and talk to them as much as we can, and are increasingly trying to carve away some time to spend individually with each child, but I know that my children don't get the same level of verbal interaction as a first born singleton.  Maybe, just maybe, if I had the boob tube on a little more it would fill some of the silence and possibly help them in their language development.***

Molly in her Elmo shirt after her first haircut. 

I didn't want to tackle language issues today, although this is something that I will be writing about more over the next couple of months because I really want to share our experiences with the minions and language, development and how we're coping with some speech delays.

I wanted to talk about television and choices for our children.  I recently came across this article about how Disney has become more progressive than Sesame Street.  Yeah, I couldn't believe it either, but Disney has moved leaps and bounds beyond Sesame Street by representing a more realistic display on the various types of families that people grow up in today.(Click here to read the article). 

I never really planned on relying on television as a primary resource for teaching our children about family values, but can understand how frustrating it would be to have your family not represented or acknowledged in the media.  I've always thought of television being behind the times, tied to the values that their sponsors and advertisers demand rather than progressive.  I also plan on teaching the minions about family by exposure to the many different types of families that they interact with in their lives.  This is not a lesson I want brought to them by Corn Flakes.*****  Courtney Cox was the first person on American television to use the word "period" in the 1980's in a tampon commercial and I tend to use that as a guideline on how TV is behind the times when it comes to what is taboo and what is allowed on prime time.

Congrats Disney!  You pleasantly surprised me, however I hope this type of programming becomes mainstay rather than newsworthy.

To read my thoughts on Kevin Clash and Elmo click here

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*Usually when we're cooking or emptying the dishwasher and don't want little hands around a hot stove or dishwasher door surfing while grabbing at steak knives.
**Here is a quote on this from a Harvard Study, "Many researchers have come to the conclusion that it is not biological but social factors that are responsible for language delays. Several studies have now found that young twins receive less directed speech from their caretaker and participate in fewer situations where their attention is jointly engaged with the caretaker. Both of these situations are thought to be necessary (to some extent) for language learning. "  To view the study summary click here
***And prevent Molly for pointing at strangers on the street to call them Mommy, Daddy or even worse Dog.
*****Not that I think that Corn Flakes has issues with any specific types of "controversial" programming.

Queen Jane Approximately

We often joke that our Miss Molly isn't a princess, that she is in fact "The Queen" of all things.  Women in my family aren't exactly known to be weak, wilting flowers who swoon over every Prince Eric who passes by.  They're more Queen Grrl...than Princess Girl.*

A few years ago, when Chris and I started to entertain the idea of having children, we had a big talk about the commercialisation (Disneyfication, Dorafication, Princessification) of childhood today.  Chris proclaimed royally that he wasn't going to encourage the gender boxing, tweening of our kids, particularly if he were to have a daughter.  I often find myself reminding him that although I was quite girlie as a child, I come from a long line of Queen Grrls and that one Princess lunch box isn't going to transform Molly into a different person.

So far we've managed to navigate play time away from branded princesses and pop culture letting both children play with whatever the heck they want to.  As a result Jack's favourite toys are The Magic Cooking Pot, Duplo Blocks, The Talking Pink Purse and his rock and roll pickup truck.  Molly's are anyone else's shoes, balls of any kind**, Bob the Builder and her baby doll who she routinely bites in the face. 

Enter the pink aisle...the not so new way that advertisers at toy stores are targeting the girl demographic.  I first noticed a resurgence of it with the girl themed Kinder Eggs, or maybe I'm just paying closer attention now that I have a daughter.  I don't know.

Then yesterday I saw this great article on Bunch about  Girls Revolt Against the Pink Aisle, an attempt at breaking some of the gender barriers put forward.  Check out the ad in the link above...what do you think?

I think it's a great ad, however I know that I played with Barbies, Cabbage Patch Kids, My Little Ponies and Strawberry Shortcake, but so did my brother and some of my other male friends and I would probably still make similar choices if I was a child today.

We need to face the facts that the media and other kids on the playground are going to influence her eventually, or that she might choose to be a princess...however, that is her choice and we can't be making her decisions for her.

My name is SaraBeth and:

I'm a Veronica, not a Betty...
I'm a Maleficent, not a Sleeping Beauty....
I'm a Misfit, not a Hologram....
I'm The Red Queen, not an Alice...

And I chose it...


Okay, now to think of it, I'm a villain in most of these situations...maybe some revolt against the pink aisle won't hurt.

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*Unfortunately I don't know how to dot the i on my "girl" and "princess" with little hearts, but I would if I could.
**The joke about the balls start and stop here.

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby

When I was eight I had something happen to me that was akin to the first ten minutes, or the infamous warning sign section of an after school special.  An authority figure yelled at me and then pinched me really hard in an inappropriate place because I wasn't finishing up a project fast enough.*  There were no witnesses and because I had been yelled at and "got in trouble" I was embarrassed and ashamed.  I did, however, cry to my classmate and friend A that day and she, thankfully, told her mom who immediately called my parents who immediately took action.

I still remember the conversation, in the coat room of an OV's restaurant for my eighth birthday where my parents tried to explain to me that I had done nothing wrong and why I needed to tell them when an adult acted in a way that made me uncomfortable.  They also reiterated that while respecting adults is important that, my body belonged to me and that no one should yell at me, bully or ever touch me without my permission.  In retrospect I feel sorry for them, trying to explain difficult concepts in the black and white world of a third grader.    I can only imagine what would have happened today where tolerance for bad behaviour is much lower.

This weekend I asked my mom about the situation, whether or not she was horrified that I hadn't gone to them.  As a parent I have a new level of concern over the terrible behaviour of the person and the way that I was isolated when they pinched me.  My mom told me that she was more relieved that I had told someone and that person had done the right thing and that was what was important.  Also that I had learned something really valuable before things had gone further. 

How do we arm our kids to deal with something like this?  One of our first steps towards protecting the minions is knowledge.  We have been teaching them the correct names for their body parts.  One of our favourite tools for this is Kathy Stinson's The Bare Naked Book.  It's a perfect story for one of us to read while we get bath time babies ready for bed and teach them the correct names for everything from hair on their heads to the tips of their toes.**

Last week I came across a great article on Bunch Family about teaching your Toddlers about Sex Education.  It boasted China's excellent sex education for young children, including the use of anatomically correct puppets and gives great tips on empowering your kids with education.

Image via Wikipedia

 

In a The Wonder Years kind of way I learned something important from my mom this week.  Sometimes bad things happen, it's the way we deal with these situations that really teaches our children about life.  A few years after the pinching incident I explored dealing with unpleasant situations through school enforced guidance class sessions where we watched and evaluated episodes of Degrassi Junior High.  I wonder when I can start teaching my kids about life via the kids of Degrassi street?    

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*Not that there is a appropriate place to pinch anyone, other than on the cheeks, if you're over 80 years old.
**It also helps negate the fact that my darling husband thought it was funny when Molly proclaimed that my breasts were "Balls" and that every now and then she yells "BALL" and smacks me in the chest.