Last Sunday, DadOfAllTrades sat down with the boys and watched part of the local team’s professional football game and some of the NASCAR race. While getting things done around the house is his idea of a good time on the weekends, sometimes stillness wins and the couch becomes his favorite place. He is really not a huge sports fan, so listening to him answer the questions about the rules of a particular sport is usually all the entertainment I need on such a day, so I park myself on the nearby loveseat. The boys hover around him like he is some budda to worship. I can tell Buzz has the call of the toys, but being near dad wins out and he does this stand-up-sit-down thing all afternoon, much to DadOfAllTrades’ dismay.
This Sunday, DadOfAllTrades is trying really hard to pause the tv before the commercials really get going. This is because we have noticed that the advertisements that are placed in professional sports are RARELY appropriate for five and six year olds. Such as GoDaddy.com ads with large voluptuous, um….people; and previews for shows such as Living Dead, or something like that as I could not catch the real title for my lunge across the room for the remote. The images are enough to make me put down the potato chips out of revulsion, let alone show the boys what is out there.
Dobson, in his book Bringing Up Boys, states that {boys should be kept away from violent and sexual images until the age of reason} or something close to that. That is, the age when a parent could sit down with them and discuss the real/fiction aspect of the scene, or even discuss how the scene was shot (no pun intended) to make that explosion look so cool. At our home, that age has not yet been reached. But it is being forced on us by a 15 second time slot.
LegoMaster is of the sensitive type. He cannot watch the tractor tipping/combine scene in Disney’s Cars without having nightmares for three days. He is none too happy about Buzz’s fascination with the Clone Wars series, and has declared to DadOfAllTrades and myself that he will, under no circumstances, play light sabers with Buzz as light sabers kill the robots and he does not want to be “kilt”. I think he is just unnerved at the power he is seeing on the screen. He does not like loud. He does not like fast. If one would watch NASCAR with him, you would have to turn the volume down to next to nothing to get him to sit with you. DadOfAllTrades used to turn up the volume at a particular point of the race (if you are a fan, you know when) and LegoMaster used to leave the room. At least he did until we figured out that he did not have to go to the bathroom, that he was leaving because he was uncomfortable.
I am close to positive that LegoMaster is not the only young boy with these feelings. Why are networks showing such realistic looking scenes during the day when so many young boys are watching with their fathers? I am not for censorship. But when does our society feel this crosses the line? When do we work together to restrict these images and keep our kids young? I have heard many a parent complain that we are asking way too much of our kids now-a-days. That they have to do too much _______ (fill in the blank). Homework, chores, whatever. But these same parents guffaw at the funniness of the Superbowl commercials, not realizing that putting funniness with drinking and pretty women has brought our societies’ generalized neglect for the power of alcohol to one of our biggest problems.
Is saddens me that an innocent bonding time on the couch with a father becomes a stressor to my child. And that my other child seems not bothered by the images. After all, shouldn’t a five year old wonder why the actor looks blue and has blood streaming down his face? Unfortunately, Buzz does not question this, and I wonder if he is already desensitized to such images. Has he already lost his innocence and rosy outlook on the world?
Until we find another solution, we will watch football quarters (the team is usually loosing, so why watch the whole thing?) and NASCAR laps with the remote in hand and thank our Loving Lord for guiding one of our fellow humans to the invention of “Pause” on network television. And not be able to doze on a Sunday while watching the game.
:D so glad you guys have such great bonding time!
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