Limbically Overprotective

It seems like maybe I have written here before about the thing I read a while back regarding parenting styles...but I can't remember. So I'll just write about it again. I read in this brain development book, the name of which did not stay lodged in my own personal brain, that how our parents parent us actually becomes part of the structure of our brains. The term "limbic system" lingers hazily- I think the style of parenting we get actually gets coded into this system. So when we in turn become parents, we have an inescapable tendency to do it exactly as it was done to us.

This can be terrible, in the case of kids who were treated badly, or it can be great, in the case of kids whose parents really had it right. Usually it's somewhere in between, of course. I love this anecdote in that section of the book, about how in France people are WILD about babies and kids, where instead of rolling their eyes when a family with kids enters the restaurant, they smile and go over and ask if they can hold the baby. Who knows if this is true. But the point was that it is reinforced in each generation by the parenting experiences, and community experiences, received by Les Enfants. And when you think about it, no matter how wrapped up American parents get in their own kids, the public at large over here does seem to have a fairly intolerant view of children. I know I did, before becoming saddled with them. Ha.

Anyway, this is a lot of front matter for the topic I have been thinking about this week, which may sound unrelated at first: videos. We are a family with very little video watching. Wait, that is patently untrue. We are a family in which the little ones do very little video watching. Almost none. They both watched the presidential and vice presidential debates (not closely, but you know). They have seen some of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. They watched the inauguration, or a bit of it. They have seen many of the songs in The Sound of Music (when Naomi was smaller, she feared the goatherd puppets, but Muriel cannot get enough of them), and a few in The Little Mermaid. Naomi has seen The Wizard of Oz. They have seen probably two episodes of some PBS show or other. That's about it, I think. Oh, some youtube movies of old School House Rock cartoons, and the weird "Teaser and Firecat" video for Cat Stevens' Moonshadow. I think I have covered it all.

Now, occasionally, when we pick Naomi up from her preschool, which is "Montessori-inspired" and kind of all that, she and her homies are parked in front of a video. I am not all up in arms about this- I am sure they are not watching Friday the Thirteenth or anything. They watch movies that are ostensibly for kids, like the Rugrats something or other, and Ants, to name two recent ones. But I didn't expect, when I drifted into THE EXACT SAME EXTREME SHIELDING BEHAVIOR that my own mother practiced on me, that it would be her preschool that would offer the alternative. I thought we would work up to a healthy level of media consumption for her, and try to make it no big deal, but still have some say over what she sees.

What on earth am I trying to protect my precious little ones from? Lots, really, but straight up (yes, I have been watching AI): We try not to be mean and sarcastic in our house (er, in front of the kids). Frequently, kids in shows and characters in kids' shows are mean and sarcastic. Even the "heroes" of the shows. Even in little kids shows. And there HAVE to be bad guys. Which I get, that's the grand narrative, good vs. evil, but if you didn't know how to be mean or be bad, and then you got to watch a bunch of grasshoppers be mean and bad to a bunch of ants, well, now you do know!

I do not have to re-read that last paragraph to know I sound like a crazy person. There is plenty of good programming out there that is super kid-appropriate, and when Muriel clears the AAP no-screen-time recommended age, there will be much more relaxed attitudes about media consumption, I guess. I don't want them to be the TV-starved nerd I was, who would rather watch TV than do any other fun things when I visited friends with more lax viewership rules. It is on me to research some videos that they can enjoy without having their precious preciousness besmirched or whatever. But really, at preschool....maybe they could just put some Sesame Street in the DVD? Is that too much to ask? I'm thinking about asking.