Recently I showed my 8 year old son Happy tree Friends and he loved it as I knew he would.He also loves the Simpsons which contains the Tom and Jerry parody Itchy and Scatchy.
Happy Tree Friends is sold on the premise it is so full on violent that it shouldn't be watched by kids.
Of course it is not really any worse than Tom and Jerry or Roadrunner as a matter of fact it has some great lessons about life.
Basically that stuff can kill and maim ya.
Permanently.
It's sales pitch works like Parental Advisory Stickers. They are the only kind of records any self respecting teenager should buy of course. Putting a warning on something is like honey to a bee.
The forbidden fruit of consumer culture.
Most rap music works the same, selling itself as anti-establishment when it is really the opposite.
Instead of stick it to the man and march to your own drum, its message seems to be making lots of money and buying stuff will liberate you.Just like an ad for Rolex.
A matter a fact some Hip hop is an ad for Rolex.
Rappers spend an inordinate amount of lyrical space listing products coz they get paid to.
Did I mention that I'm one of those terrible people who don't have free to air TV at all?
How weird is that?
How do my children find out about the world?
Now do you mean the real world or the world of TV, you know what's going on in the OC?
Cause I can guarantee they are better informed than most kids their age.
Coz they don't have to swim through a great tide of garbage to get to the good stuff.
You find out about the good shows and get them on DVD.
We had 99 channels of cable crap for a while and it was truly horrible, over night the kids started talking with American accents and saying "You wanna piece of me".
It had to go.
So liberal with Happy Tree Friends, Fascist with TV in general
My parenting is a paradox, actually my life's one too.
One show I'll try and not expose them to is Southpark.
Yes I know your thinking this guy doesn't get it but I do.
I laugh and it's funny but it's also at it's center heartless.-
I was watching it from the beginning,but over the years come to realise there is a cold and inhumane personality streaking behind this creation.
I was drawn to Monty Python from an early age because there was a philosophy behind the humour that resonated with me and I am suspicious of Southpark for the same reason.
Of course it's only a matter of time before they are watching it but I'll try and be the gatekeeper for just a little longer.....
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We had no TV at all for 4 yrs when our kids were little and lived on videos too. But we did give in, in the end as we also live in an isolated part of Oz, it became difficult giving them experience in things like what an ocean's really like or social aspects, the world around them. We watched a LOT of documentaries. The weird thing was picking up on what was being marketed to kids back then by their peers who did have telly. They didnt know what things were but they knew they were damn important :)
BTW home schooling's a hard thing to do - i really admire that.
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