(I know, it’s been forever since I’ve blogged here. That’s all I’m going to say about it.) :)
So we took the kids on a “family date” to see “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” the other day. It looked funny in the previews and it had been while since we tested Roland’s ability to sit still for an hour and a half. Yes, it was funny. And yes! Roland sat still for the most part.
However, 10 minutes or so in the movie, someone referred to the town that the movie was about as a “hell hole”.
What??
The movie was based on a children’s book. Think “hell hole” was in the book? Somehow I doubt it. Fortunately the rest of the movie went fine.
This got me thinking today about how different things are these days. I don’t remember my parents having to worry about what new phrase I might repeat after going to see a KIDS movie when I was young. Maybe they did. I know there was a lot of…um…adult…innuendo then, as there is now, but outright bad language? I’m not so sure. And to tell the truth, I doubt movies like Shrek that are full of innuendo would have been accepted by a lot of parents when I was young.
Sometimes we will watch and older cartoon with the kids and we’ll notice how one character might call another one an idiot or call them stupid. And we are floored that we were allowed to watch things like that. Yet, we barely notice when the word “hell hole” is used in a movie.
This is light in comparison, but it is something else I think about a lot. We were watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse with the kids a couple of months ago and Goofy said, “You know what, chicken butt” to another character. Now, I’ll be honest. I laughed my butt off when he did that. :) And being more honest I’ll admit that I say that to my kids a lot now. But I can remember a time in my life when “butt” was off limits. Now it’s being said on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!
And don’t even get me started on the state of “family hour” programming, if there is such a thing any more. There’s another word for “butt” that is off limits for my kids that you can’t watch a show with anyone over 18 as a character and not hear it. We like to settle down with the kids at night and watch a few minutes of what we consider a “safe” show. If it is a show that Beverly or I actually care to watch, it usually is a cake decorating or cooking type show. But those still have language that is unnecessary.
Why is every curse word except the F-word fair game these days? Oh, except for god da**. They can say the D-word but not God in front of it. Classy, huh? I just don’t get it.
We’ve pretty much taken the approach that it’s impossible to shield our kids from this kind of language now. Kinda sad, but that’s the reality for us anyway. We’ve scaled back the TV shows we watch significantly but as I said it’s pretty much unavoidable unless we stopped turning the TV on altogether. While that may be tempting at times, I don’t think it would really solve the problem either. It would delay it though I suppose.
If they repeat a word that shouldn’t then we tell them never to do it again and why. It actually has worked pretty well so far. Any time someone says, “Oh my God” on TV (and you know, they aren’t actually talking to God), one of the kids will point that out and say, “they shouldn’t say that, Daddy”. So that gives me some comfort. I do just wish it wasn’t so easy for kids to hear that kind of stuff though.
Oh well. This wasn’t really about anything other than some rambling. You probably wish you had your 5 minutes back now. Sorry. :) Feel free to chime in with thoughts if you have any.
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