What are they teaching today’s children? How is it that children seem so censored to the real world? What is with this “everyone gets a trophy” business?
I hate to start this ‘back in my day’ conversation because in reality I’m 26 years old and that’s at least a 50-year-old’s reply to change. But, in all honesty, I understand the world is a different place and children can no longer run the streets with a curfew of “be home before the streetlights come on” mentality, but no Bugs Bunny?!
I was talking with a customer while finishing up a house cleaning and she told me that Looney Tunes is no longer a staple in a child’s life. (I cannot tell you how many episodes I’ve seen on a Saturday morning when I was a kid.) She told me that the episodes are considered violent with sexual innuendos and too much smoking for today’s fragile little minds. (Ok, the last part I added in, but you see where I’m going with this.)
Quite the opposite thoughts go through my head when remembering Bugs and Elmer Fudd’s constant feud or Wyl E. Coyote always trying to kill Roadrunner. I think that shows persistence and tenacity. Every week poor Wyl E.’s plan would always backfire on him and he would blow himself up with Acme fireworks or have an enormous bank vault flatten himself, but every week he was ready with a new plan!
Don’t get me wrong, I think it is very important for children to know what is nice and what is not nice, how to interact with people, how to get through this craziness that we adults call life, but I also don’t think they should be coddled into thinking that the world is full of unicorns and rainbows. If you’re little princess is addicted to Sophia the First, then let her watch Sophia, but to rule out an entire generation’s television programming because “it’s not nice” is ridiculous.
My fallback is always, “well, I did it and I’m fine.” Understanding that, yes, there are things that change and better processes to go about making a decision; but I never saw Bugs whack Elmer Fudd in the face with a frying pan, resulting in a flat face that Elmer himself would pop back to normal, and assume I could do that to my sisters and have the same result. I knew right from wrong, reality from fiction.
And who is my age and remembers Tiny Toons?! (“Ducky go down the hole! Elevator go down the hole.”) CLASSIC! and now their toys are sold as novelty gifts, with a statement on the box saying “this is not a toy, this is for novelty use only.
I’m not saying your kids should watch Cops because that’s the real world. I understand you want them to be kids and have an imagination and play and be free, but at the same time if we keep portraying the world as a do-good place filled with nice people who will never be mean or ugly to you, we are setting ourselves (and our children) up for disappointment.