Stay Cool Dad

My wife remembers just about every note of Jesus Christ Superstar. It’s a big part of her childhood.

It’s got me thinking because I wonder what music we’ll share with the kids.

Do I really want to sit with them while “Idol” contestants that our local newspaper recently (and insensitively) characterised as “Tongan barmaids” murder Mowtown over and over? I think not!

Do I think car journeys will be filled with Abba covers after they see “Mama Mia”?

Hell No! We Won’t Go!

So what will we share? I ain’t going to bring them up on the prevailing pap if I can help it (which I cannot, of course). But there does seem to be a dearth of stuff out there with enough zeitgeist to cross generations and set a family into song for years to come.

Or maybe I’m just too much of a fuddy duddy elitist wanker to know.

Today is new comic day! I’ll be in town so will make five minutes to drop into the comic shop I have patronised for 18 years (wow!) to pick up a few weeks worth of stuff.

And then I’ll bring them home and hide them.

I mainly buy “mature audience” comics, which doesn’t mean porn but does mean some rather nasty horror and violence.

Problem is some of them are also super hero comics. So when the boy sees those he wants to have them read to him.

So for the time being, this is not a media passion of mine I can share. And I’m not quite sure when it really becomes appropriate too either, what with all the hitting and fighting and stuff in comics. Do I really want to let the kids in on this stuff?

Yes, actually. I don’t think cartoon violence is really bad for them. I like the epistomophilia that comes with collecting comics. And I think that the broken narrative that comes with a story moving once a month is good for the memory.

Besides, it’s not as if we’ll be the kind of parents who leave them in front of horribly age-inappropriate movies without supervision.

So … plenty of justification.

But no idea when to start. Or with what.

Let’s get him reading first. But for the time being, I’ll still be hiding the comics I read.

Crossover media … aaaargh!

One of the first jobs I did when I embarked on my current career as a freelance writer was a piece of journalism about introducing your kids to computers that says, among other things, that “If parents want their kids to use a computer they must do it with their child so they are interacting.”
I remembered this piece too late yesterday and I feel very stupid today.

Our son likes YouTube. We search it for things like Thomas the Tank Engine or Road Runner and let him click his way through a few clips.

Or we did.

Yesterday, however, he clicked on a profanity-laden Road Runner mashup that had “F**k-F**k” instead of “Meep meep!”

This is why we no longer do YouTube without it being an interactive event.

Ever since this incident I’ve been re-thinking all those scenarios about ones kids encountering terrible things online. They suddenly seem more plausible. The people calling for censorware seem less nutty.

But rather than enter panic/lockdown, the path is simple.

I’ll be online WITH the kids from now on, instead of trusting that my fellow netizens appreciate the different needs of a family with young kids.

Sadly this seems a necessity because a nearly-five-year-old cannot be expected to navigate media without a guide.

Now all I have to do is remember the URLs of the naughty stuff to look at later on …