Ajab and Ayeed are still fans of Playhouse Disney, though I suspect they’re getting tired of watching the same old thing over and over again, even though they insist on having the channel on at all times. Ajab’s tried to get us to play his old Baby Einstein dvds but unfortunately our dvd player died of old age (I bought it 7-8 years ago, I think) and they can’t get their itchy hands off the keyboard and mouse if we tried to play it on the PC.
An afternoon at home yesterday after the stupid time-waster that is the dreaded Individual Physical Proficiency Test (IPPT), which I am very proficient at failing, afforded me with some time to troll through Joost and YouTube in search of cartoons for the boys to watch. Devilish little me decided to let them watch Happy Tree Friends. In case you’ve never watched it before, Happy Tree Friends is kind of like an extended version of the Itchy and Scratchy Show on the Simpsons - cute and funny with a lot of blood and gore. Highly entertaining, albeit nonsense shows.
The boys loved it, especially Ayeed who was laughing at the severed fingers and all the bright red ‘blood’ on the PC monitor.
I’m not one who would wrap my kids (Maya included) in cotton and shield them from the evil and destruction that this beautiful world of ours has to offer. They’re going to see much worse on CNN, and although death and injuries to hands as a result of a massive bite from a practical joke fake teeth are no laughing matter in real-life, there’s really no point in hiding them from the brutal truth that is life, no matter how painful it is to witness, especially in this day and age where material that depict ‘visually disturbing’ scenes are so readily available.
And what does ‘visually disturbing’ really mean? Does it mean that my vision will suddenly become blurry after I’ve seen those scenes? Will it ‘disturb’ my subconscious from it’s slumber? Perhaps they should rename it ‘mentally disturbing’ instead.
I’m confident my kids won’t grow up to be psychotic mass murderers as a result of watching all these cartoons and until such time when they will ask questions like “Why is there a hole in that man’s head? Why is he lying so still on the ground? Is he sleeping?”, which will be answered with the honest truth, I’m gonna let them enjoy stupid bloody animation like Happy Tree Friends or MTV’s Celebrity Deathmatch.
Heck, I might even buy them toy guns and play war games with them. They are, after all, going to be playing with real guns when they’re doing their National Service. I might even take the opportunity to impart some rifle handling and shooting skills while I’m at it. I’d hate to think what will happen if my boys, in the future, get enlisted and treat their weapons like some evil hot potato and be scared shitless in the shooting range, which I’ve seen happening to some of my NS mates.
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