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Let Me Entertain You

Recently I have been having the same conversation over

and over again. I talk about it with friends, family, co-workers, and

even complete strangers. The conversation centers around one of the

current tenets of parenting that I have come to dread:

Thou Art Thy Children’s Half-Time Entertainment

Will someone please explain to me when this happened?

My parents weren’t what I would call overly engaged with my sister and

myself, but we also weren’t ignored. We did, however, did carry the

burden of keeping ourselves busy. Sometimes we played together other

times we flew solo. To put an even finer point on it, I spent the first

nine years of my life living amongst American ex-patriots in a foreign

country without easy access to television for distraction.  Also, I’m a

Gen X-er, so my childhood took place before a plethora of children’s

movies had infiltrated the universe of video stores. Heck, we barely

had video stores.

Video games were few and far between. I did like to rock the Speak and

Spell (ironic, considering how deplorable my spelling is today).

These days, I watch the parents I know run around, spending time and

money to keep their kids busy--gymnastics, dance, sports, music,

martial arts. We make ourselves crazy trying to figure out how to

occupy their weekends, rainy days and—gasp—their summers.

Children’s TV and movies proliferate and video games are geared to the

“whole family” experience. I nearly died laughing the day I saw Wii

Music advertised on TV…you and your family could use the Wii

controllers to select an instrument to “play” (maracas, drums, bells)

and then the whole family could play a song. In my house, we could just

go raid the box of kid instruments and do exactly the same thing with,

ahem, real instruments (maracas, drums, bells).

Aaaaah…I digress.

I’m not really a curmudgeon about video games or kids TV. We have a Wii

and my husband and I have been known to rely on the “square nanny” (as

my husband calls the TV) when trying to get a moment’s peace. I also

unequivocally love spending time with my kids. I enjoy exposing them to

new experiences and plan to continue to support their interests and

hobbies.

For example, last weekend, I took the girls to the Exploratorium in San

Francisco. At two and four, the science of the museum was wasted on

them, but they were thrilled to run around what is essentially a giant

warehouse full of buttons and levers to push or pull. Instant

gratification and cause and effect were the order of the day. We had a

great time, the three of us playing together. As the day ended, we

perused the gift shop. Both girls were able to pick out one thing to

buy and take home. Ava selected a magnetic face with the tiny shredded

magnets that can be pulled around by a magnetic pencil to make hair,

mustaches, and beards. Carmen choose a great deck of 4x6 Eric Carle