sigh, but yeah
This afternoon I found myself torn between my need to get a program written before my class tonight and my kids' need to have something to do. I needed to work uninterrupted, so my usual routine of setting them up with an activity and then moving them onto another when they got bored wasn't an option. I also really have a problem with plopping them down in front of the television so I was really stumped for a bit. I finally decided to take the plunge, something I had really hoped to avoid for a while yet.
I sat Ozzy down and started to teach him how to use a computer. He has his own account with the most limited of access to anything, and thus far only knows how to use the PBSkids bookmark. Over the weekend I'll look up parental control stuff. So he was playing with the Sesame Street games, counting and naming letters and such, while Fifi watched and interjected very serious commentary, mostly about "COOKIE! COOKIE! EATING COOKIE!" at the obvious intervals.
He really likes their new "Wordgirl" show, even though he's never seen it, only played some of the games on the site. But there's a two or three-minute clip of the show on there, and in it some villain says to Wordgirl "Ah, you have a television. Only idiots watch television," to which Wordgirl replies "We're not idiots! We only watch PBS." This elicted both a snicker and a cringe from me, because while it's funny it's just so... well, yeah, propaganda. It's propaganda I happen to agree with to an extent, especially in terms of kids, but fuck, can't we leave them out of this? Propaganda + my kids = me, really uptight. When Ozzy once pointed to a picture of Obama and said "Look! It's Obama! He's cool and bitchin'," I was horrified. I feel very strongly that my kids are not my own personal repositories for my ideas and values, and until they're old enough to start to understand the world and use! critical! thinking! skills! I'm trying to keep a bit of a lid on informing their opinions.
But the silver lining in my having finally broken down and introduced the goblins to the computer, is that my kids are having their first introduction to computers on Linux. It just gives me the most enormous satisfaction. Obviously he's a strict GUI-only user at this point because, you know, he's three. But it's start.
I sat Ozzy down and started to teach him how to use a computer. He has his own account with the most limited of access to anything, and thus far only knows how to use the PBSkids bookmark. Over the weekend I'll look up parental control stuff. So he was playing with the Sesame Street games, counting and naming letters and such, while Fifi watched and interjected very serious commentary, mostly about "COOKIE! COOKIE! EATING COOKIE!" at the obvious intervals.
He really likes their new "Wordgirl" show, even though he's never seen it, only played some of the games on the site. But there's a two or three-minute clip of the show on there, and in it some villain says to Wordgirl "Ah, you have a television. Only idiots watch television," to which Wordgirl replies "We're not idiots! We only watch PBS." This elicted both a snicker and a cringe from me, because while it's funny it's just so... well, yeah, propaganda. It's propaganda I happen to agree with to an extent, especially in terms of kids, but fuck, can't we leave them out of this? Propaganda + my kids = me, really uptight. When Ozzy once pointed to a picture of Obama and said "Look! It's Obama! He's cool and bitchin'," I was horrified. I feel very strongly that my kids are not my own personal repositories for my ideas and values, and until they're old enough to start to understand the world and use! critical! thinking! skills! I'm trying to keep a bit of a lid on informing their opinions.
But the silver lining in my having finally broken down and introduced the goblins to the computer, is that my kids are having their first introduction to computers on Linux. It just gives me the most enormous satisfaction. Obviously he's a strict GUI-only user at this point because, you know, he's three. But it's start.