Thanksgiving

[porphyry]

A. first refused to accept that the turkey we'll be eating this afternoon was once a real, live turkey. "No, it's not. You're joking," he says.

Second, and far more disturbing to Malkhos and me, he has pronounced further that he would not eat it. He's sad for the turkey.

What in the hell could they possibly be teaching him in preschool? (Yesterday, he obviously learned the comparative and superlative because he was chanting "big, bigger, biggest" and "fast, faster, fastest" etc.) When he comes home denouncing drinking and smoking, Malkhos and I will have to build a special woodshed behind which to flog him.

Comments

[mercyorbemoaned.livejournal.com]

What in the hell could they possibly be teaching him in preschool?

Communitarianism. That's kinda the whole point of preschool.

[stefanie-bean.livejournal.com]

I don't think they necessarily get it in preschool. When we were young, my mother had a big Dutch oven, and for the family dinner, she'd roast a chicken in it. When my brother was three or so, he just went *ape* whenever he'd see my mom put the chicken into the roaster. He'd cry and say, "Don't put the baby in the oven!" several times. Later my mom told me that she thought he might have seen a resemblance between the chicken and one of our numerous naked, nasty-looking baby dolls (of which we had quite a collection.)

IIRC, he also used to get a bit upset, watching my mom stuff a turkey for Christmas / Thanksgiving. She used to sew it up with a big needle and thick thread, to keep the stuffing in. It used to freak me out a bit, too.

However, he has grown up just fine... ; )

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Okay, then, maybe no woodshed :) Part of the problem is that both our children really like many of the shows for children on public television; these shows' main themes seem to revolve around ideas such as You're okay just the way you are which in and of itself is minimally all right, but what about improving oneself? The other theme is that of community and the individual, and in these programs community is all--e.g., to the detriment of the individual. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the shows embody political correctness ad nauseum to the exclusion of anything else. We don't want him picking these things up in preschool too.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

But the 'you're okay just the way you are' theme is the diametric opposite of the community idea, so it sounds quite balanced to me. Personally I despise the individualist ethos and having it forced upon me relentlessly as a child and teenager. Constantly being asked what my 'ambition' is "what do you like doing?" or "what do you want to be?", with no reference whatsoever to any sort of social or family stability which is all I ever craved and which, frankly, I would sacrifice any spurious 'career' or 'hobby' for. Then to reach adulthood and discover it was all bullshit anyway and that half the kids I studied with just got highly paid jobs through nepotism. Grrr.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

I think what I want for my children more than anything else is to feel they do in fact have a community--I was raised in a very secure, close-knit, traditional family--Mom and Dad, grandparents, etc. who all loved each other and didn't hurt each other (not that we didn't have problems; everyone does)--Malkhos, however, came from a very screwed up family, quite the opposite of mine. What we don't want is for the children to absorb the tastes and attitudes of the community presented by mass consumer culture as the means into a community. Does that make sense? I think you're quite right; somewhere in the middle is best.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

It may seem balanced on the basis of that brief description, but here is a fuller picture:

The PBS shows (in conformity with the educational establishment) propagate the ideas that individual differences don’t matter, that what might reasonably be called a disadvantage is neutral and that advantages don’t exist. Therefore every person is perfect just the way they are and do not need to change or improve. At the same time, individual effort always fails and group effort always succeeds. The third idea is derived from the New Age concept “Visualize World Peace;” in other words, wishing makes it so. Reality doesn’t exist, only the construction of reality. These are exemplified in a show meant to teach the letters (and, oddly enough, having some effect, since when M. touches the screen to select the required letter as requested by the show characters she gets results much better than chance), they rewrite fairy tales to give them happy endings. The première episode prevented Humpty Dumpty from falling, so there was no need to even mention nasty aristocratic concepts like kings or soldiers. It briefly shows the parents of one of the characters and goes out of its way to demonstrate that the mother is a white woman who holds a professional job outside the home while the father is a black man who stays home to tend the children and writes children’s books in his spare time. There is nothing wrong with that (although you could give it a highly subversive interpretation if you wished), but they picked that particular configuration merely for the sake of blowing a raspberry at tradition (not that I have any investment with that sort of tradition, but they flout tradition—whether the 1950s or Grimm just for the sake of doing it—the hippies!). Perhaps the worst one was Cinderella. At the stroke of midnight, her gown turns back into peasant rags, but the prince doesn’t care since he cares nothing for status (a prince!) and they go on dancing to the rock-music soundtrack (no other form of music is allowed to exist) and he tells her how good she looks.

As one of Mme Malkhos’s old professors put it, “The problem with this New Age thinking is that it wants to pretend that differences between people don’t exist, when in fact they do. The concept nullifies the idea that there are such things as good people and bad people, good ideas and bad ideas, and so on.”

Of course, the shows for children on the commercial channels are just commercials.

[stefanie-bean.livejournal.com]

What we don't want is for the children to absorb the tastes and attitudes of the community presented by mass consumer culture as the means into a community.

That's an important point.

Not to brag, but I think we did a pretty good job with our own kids in that regard. They're 20, 18, and 16 now, and while there are aspects of the consumer culture they do like (some video games, movies, etc.), I would say they're not slaves to it. I'm not sure it's possible to live in this society and be totally untouched by it, though. In general, though, I'd say that they're capable of standing apart from, and having thoughts, likes etc. independent of the herd.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way about my child. A real functional community is good, but a fake one isn't.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

PBS sounds odd. I remember watching Sesame Street as a child in Hong Kong. That didn't seem too bad. Though the idea of an inner-city 'street' which no car ever invaded and small children sat around all day unattended talking to puppets in dustbins was a bit bizarre. Probably the most communally-focussed kids programme on the BBC is 'Blue Peter', which has been running since 1958 without changing its format a great deal. It often stages nationwide charity appeals, whereby its child viewers can contribute by sending in some non-cash recyclable item and then watch the total collected amount rise each week. I used to find this quite exciting when I was a child; feeling part of some big push and seeing the result on live TV. Apart from TV I had Roald Dahl. I loved him. His stories were idealised, true, with polarised good and bad characters and happy endings, but always a great streak of sadism in there too.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

I suppose that's what I want for my child too. An ability to enjoy mass consumer culture while understanding its limitations.