Parental Nazism

[ciroccoj]

tobiascharity, it begins real early. The urge to solve problems through parental Nazi-ism.

Chris and I have been in debates for a while about Buzz Lightyear and Star Command in our home. When Daniel was little, we pre-viewed everything he saw, including Disney movies, because there's some scary shit out there (if you don't believe me, check out the last few minutes of The Little Mermaid, and tell me that spearing the giant sea-witch through the stomach with a big bloody boat, then watching her turn into a skeleton in her death throes, isn't scary shit).

Anyway. Somewhere along the way we stopped pre-watching everything, but still tried as much as possible to keep things nonviolent, non-commercial. TVO Kids instead of Fox Kids. Magic Schoolbus instead of He-Man.

Then Daniel started visiting other kids and watching Spider Man and playing shoot-em-up Nintendo at their houses. And we went over the whole "different houses have different rules" credo to (a) reassure Daniel that other kids' parents weren't evil for letting their kids watch such things, (b) he could watch them at their houses, and (c) that didn't mean he could watch them in our house.

But somewhere, we kind of lost sight of that. Witness the fact that at one point I found that we were not only letting Daniel (and Justin) watch Buzz Lightyear in our home, but that Chris had taped a whole bunch of episodes for him so that he could watch it whenever he liked.

Now, Buzz Lightyear is not evil. In fact, it's a pretty good program, where good triumphs, nobody gets killed, there's strong female characters, and a whole bunch of other nice stuff happens. But it's still violent - lasers and blowing things up and all sorts of stuff like that. And the fact that nobody gets hurt or killed... well... I'm ambivalent about that. I'm not sure I want my kid to watch, over and over, material that implies that the way to win arguments is with violence - but that's OK because nobody gets hurt anyway.

And it disturbs the hell out of me to hear my little darlings chasing each other around our home and yelling, over and over again, "You're DEAD ZURG!!! I'll SHOOT YOU!!!" ::sound of lasers and bombs and other instruments of destruction::

My point (and I do have one) is that finally Chris and I came to the conclusion that it wasn't appropriate to have this tape in our home. And that Chris would explain it to Daniel, let him watch it one last time, then put it away until he's 8.

OK. No problem. Daniel was a little upset, but on the whole took it rather well. He can still watch it at other people's houses, and it's not gone forever. Just until he (and Justin) are a little less prone to copy the TV in their games, and whack the hell out of each other by accident when they get a little too enthused.

So I go to pick him up from his babysitter's today. And what do I hear as we're leaving? Daniel whispering to her, "So I'll watch Buzz tomorrow. You'll tape it for me, right?"

Poor kid. This is not what I wanted him to do - make him think that he has to go sneaking around in order to get something he wants. I guess we'll have to have the whole "different houses have different rules" talk again tonight after he comes back from his friends' house. And add in a dose of "if you don't like the rules we have, please try to talk to us about them, don't sneak around behind our backs trying to get around them."

Comments

[snarkhunter.livejournal.com]

Not to imply that I view you or your family as a sociological study, b/c I don't, but reading your journal brings up real concerns that I have about any future sproglets I might be raising. I'm old enough now that I need to think about these things...and...yeah. I mean, I know I want my kids to have as many gender-neutral toys as possible, and I want to discourage them from being violent (even though we turned out okay, my brother and I pounded on each other for sixteen years and it was very, very ugly)...I wonder how much we can really do.

It's all very confusing. But from what I can tell, you seem like the kind of parent who is aware of her limitations while trying to instill good values in your child...without trying to squash him. :) And that's a good parent in my book.

Re:

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

Thanks... it's a really, really tough balance.

What's awful is that it's not a child-friendly world out there. Sometimes it feels that as a parent you're the only thing standing between your child and humongous forces out there wanting to turn them into violent, greedy, bratty, shallow little consumers of a toxic culture.

I once read a parent's response to "your kid's gotta grow up sometime - don't over-shelter them". They basically likened raising a child to raising a plant. Yes, eventually of course you want your plant to be able to survive the wolrd outside. But if you have a tiny little seedling and you plant it in your garden right away, it's going to die or get stunted because it can't handle the elements yet. That's why you keep seedlings in hothouses and nurture them - so that some day they will be strong enough to plant outside.

The problem is that kids don't come with "plant outside at 6 weeks" instructions. Every child is an individual. And usually, your entire culture is not out there constantly pressuring you to plant your seedlings outside, or coming into your hothouse to try to steal them.

[tobiascharity.livejournal.com]

And usually, your entire culture is not out there constantly pressuring you to plant your seedlings outside, or coming into your hothouse to try to steal them.

But see, to me there's a difference between blindly saying "NOOOOO!" and clamping your hands over your childrens eyes, and watching things with your kids/trying to understand why they do what they do/understanding why they do what they do, and then make a decision. You've decided violence is bad; you know why you've decided such, you've set rules, you've made limits, but the point is that they're limits with foundations in reality. TLD used to (still does) try and beat the crap out of me because he owned ONE Power Rangers movie and thought that he was the shiznit 'cos he could imitate a flying kick. Mom put a stop to *that* one real quick.

But in my mom being Nazi-ish with fic, there *was* no foundation in reality for her fears. Sure, the internet's a dangerous place, sure, there are creeps out there, sure, there's fic out there that NOBODY should read, much less a fourteen year old. But Mom didn't know that; she didn't know why I read fic or wrote fic or talked with people who wrote fic, or any of that. She just...didn't understand it, and didn't understand the total lack of influence the fic world has on my real life, and so banned it. You at least understand why your kids like Buzz Lightyear, but also why it may not be the best influence on them.

Whoo. Sorry for the long comment. Hope my point got across, but if it didn't: You're not being a Nazi. :)
-t

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

Whoo. Sorry for the long comment. Hope my point got across, but if it didn't: You're not being a Nazi. :)

Thanks - that means a fair bit, coming from you :)

I really wish parenting came with a manual, though. I mean, it does - hundreds of them - but they all contradict each other and an alarming majority are written by loons. I wish it came with one simple, sensible volume.