Too Much Tele

You know your one-year-old watches his fair share of television when he chants “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one – blaaaaast off!” (as opposed “blarst off”.

Five year’s later, apart from the odd American word, like diaper, coming out in their language, it hasn’t been a problem.

Obviously the friend of a friend whose young kiwi lad spoke his everyday language with an American twang may have turned on the tele a tad too much. Then there’s the friend whose twin’s primary numeral language was Spanish thanks to Dora the Explorer.

Sure you’re not supposed to use the television as a babysitter but, so long as they don’t stay glued to it for hours on end, if it’s going to keep them safe and occupied while you duck off for a shower then I’ve never seen what was so wrong with it. Besides most of the programmes nowadays are educational and interactive and my kids have actually learnt a heck of a lot of knowledge that didn’t come from me.

So, safe in the knowledge that I’d okayed these educational programmes several year’s ago, I’d long tuned out to what was transmitting into our house via the tv in the way of childrens’ programmes.

Until I began to notice slang sayings such as “You’re a loser dude,” (said with an American accent of course) coming out my childrens’ mouths. The final straw came when Master Six asked me what “sexy” was. (Have you ever tried to articulate the meaning to a young child? I was stumped.)

That was when I refocused on the screen and realised that Master Six had, unbeknown to me, upgraded to the more “senior” Cartoon Network channel which was filling his and his younger brother and sister’s heads with absolute trash.

There were no morals or lessons learned like channel two’s little turtle Franklin who constantly finds himself in trouble, no teamwork with Nick. Junior’s Team Umizomi interactively teaching them what a pentagon shape is - this was utter bollocks.

Whilst probably in need of a good shake up to bring them up to today’s pc standards, cartoons of the 80s such as Alvin and the Chipmunks, Hong Kong Phooey and Road Runner were far more decent (although I always wanted the Coyote to catch the road runner just the once).

So, as it’s looking like Master Six won’t be giving up the remote control anytime soon (he presses pause, then hides it before toilet breaks) it’s looking like I’ll have to give up the luxury of pre-recording, pausing and rewinding live tv by canceling our MySky subscription instead.

I’ll just have to wean myself off the E (entertainment) channel first.