letters are still coming
It's 56 emails so far and counting on the Happy Tree Friends story. I got one this morning from a mom in Hungary!
As before, the majority are saying things like "you are not alone," which I appreciate a lot, but the dominant tone of the critics (by far mostly men for some reason -- idealists, perhaps?) is why in the world would I let my six-year-old surf the Internet unsupervised.
Well. I don't want to sound too defensive, but in this particular case, since there seems to be such interest, my 9-year-old was looking on a math-quiz website recommended by his fourth-grade teacher, while his brother watched over his shoulder. As is the very pragmatic reality of even the most blessed moms, we who get to stay home after school with their kids, I got interrupted -- I truly forget if it was a phone call, something burning on the stove, someone knocking on the door, or what. Gentlemen (except for at this point one mom and one grandmom), this is reality. And when I came back, there those nasty creatures were.
But this is in fact not the point. The point, as I mentioned in the piece, is that the Internet is unavoidable and getting moreso. Pretty soon shows like Happy Tree Friends will be available on cellphones. And too many summer camps (like the one where my older son caught the Happy Tree virus) and after-school programs have unsupervised Internet use. Furthermore, too many harrassed moms will, with much justification, grab any excuse to keep their kids out of their hair for five minutes or more while they do such self-indulgent things like take a shower or cook dinner. The question isn't my personal style of parenting. It's how we all share responsibility for our culture.
4 Comments:
Hi - I am not a mother but hope to be some day. I don't have much of an opinion about the Happy Tree Friends, though, I must confess, I now want to look it up for my own entertainment ... but anyway I'm mostly glad I read the article b/c your The Mommy Brain book quite intrigues me. My sister and sister in law both stay home with the kids ... and my sister has an aerospace engineering degree from Princeton, plus some graduate engineering degree. my sister in law quite a successful mrktg mngr before leaving corporate life. So it thrills me to hear evidence of their still stimulated brains. Plus you've written for Washington Post and San Jose Mercury News, both of which I really like (I live in Manhattan) and your bkgrnd fascinates me - so I just wanted to say, wow you seem like one cool woman.
additional confession: I made up an email address to sign up for Blogger.
A Mother so busy she can't watch her kids every second of the day? Never heard of that being a problem before. Yeah right! I have an 18 month old and I have a hard time keeping up with her and everything else. The fact of the matter is we can't watch our kids every second. And Katherine is right, even with content filtering software it is possible to get access to this cartoons that dipict animated volience. There needs to be a better way.
Hi Kathy,
Some time ago you interviewed me online (via MDC) for your book and i was wondering if you did use it in your writing? I was in the book store yesterday and your book popped out at me and I would like to buy it when i can afford to.
My name is Tanja and you were asking me about being a young mom.
you can email me at cyberpixie@rogers.com
Though the Happy friends aren't my cup of tea... Remember the internet is a world culture. A new frontier. My concerns from reading the banning and such is the creation of a world apart... I'm sure the old publication MAD raised simmilar issues in parent's minds from the 50s to the mid 80s (if not still today)...
In the same light, MADs Spy vs. Spy opened the mind to looking at comic parody in a rude but intelectual way, and other parodies forced youth to read other publications or the parodies would be lost and pointless. Later Nat Lampoon offered the older croud simmilar satire and so on...
HTF is not that much diff from Buggs and Road Runner or Tpm and Jerry... And the old Popeye stuff is savage at times...
Male Person :)
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