Sesame Street Is Not For Me
I haven't been posting regularly to this blog, so this is my next attempt at making this space useful. It seems like other spaces (like Facebook) are better for friend updates, etc. Maybe some stream of thoughts posts will be more appropriate for my 'blog'.
This morning, while taking a shower (let's dwell on that image for a moment), my childhood slapped me again. Overall, my adolescence was a tolerable experience. 0 to 10/11 years are mostly blurry-happy memories. Middle-school and early high-school are pretty dark times (or an average experience peppered with dark points) that ended up happy in the later years (late sophomore) and college. I had accepted this as my awkward period (as most people have in this same time frame) and said, "If I knew then what I know now", etc.
The problem with this comes when I ask myself "why" I was unhappy in this period. There are a whole bunch of reasons that probably include hormones and sadistic youths, but a chief reason was that I didn't fit in with my piers and I did nothing to correct it. I cared very little for my look and dress and my conduct was (for lack of a better word) "weird". I was a "nerd" from every external vantage and wasn't very happy in social situations until I recognized this made efforts to find my niche. Let me clarify that in finding my niche, I never changed my 'likes' and interests.... I just swapped shells that let people relate and converse with me.
So, getting closer to my point, I ask myself "Why did it take me 3-4 years to realize this?". The over riding reason that I eventually came up with was (as you guessed from the post) Sesame Street. More specifically, some (not all) of the social lessons the show teaches to children and is replicated in many of the modern children's programming of the day (I'm 31... the show is probably totally different now).
The two key lessons I'm referring to are 1) you should never change yourself to fit in with others and 2) it is OK (and encouraging) to be abnormal ("weird"). In my early years I learned that being strange gives you attention and humor, but nothing really addressed where the fine line between funny and strange lies. It took too many years for me to get this and my behavior cycled between amusing and annoying for the period in question (more so than now ;) ). At the same time I was beaten over then head with "independent individuals" like the Sesame characters and reinforced with other entertainment (e.g. Punk Brewster,et al.) I ended up with a 'don't care' dress and no sense of whether I actually fit-in with anybody. In my mind, I was / looked / behaved "unique", not "abnormal".
So, why would Sesame Street teach these values if they are counter productive? The answer is that Sesame Street is not for me. The show is made to give urban kids hope and give them alternatives to gangs, crime, poverty, etc. This is an environment where too much conformity is literally deadly. Conforming to your piers can get you shot by a rival gang. Raising a sub-urban child with the same heavy handed message gets some mis-interpretations. I would venture to guess that "most" kids that watch Sesame Street aren't too worried about drive-bys.
So, am I unique in this take away? Was I raised on too much TV? Should children's programming be altered (or has it already been)? Am I just plain wrong about my analysis and it was really just the hormones? Should my mom have just bought me better clothes?
I sure as hell don't know and I'm going to stop here. Food for thought and all that.
This morning, while taking a shower (let's dwell on that image for a moment), my childhood slapped me again. Overall, my adolescence was a tolerable experience. 0 to 10/11 years are mostly blurry-happy memories. Middle-school and early high-school are pretty dark times (or an average experience peppered with dark points) that ended up happy in the later years (late sophomore) and college. I had accepted this as my awkward period (as most people have in this same time frame) and said, "If I knew then what I know now", etc.
The problem with this comes when I ask myself "why" I was unhappy in this period. There are a whole bunch of reasons that probably include hormones and sadistic youths, but a chief reason was that I didn't fit in with my piers and I did nothing to correct it. I cared very little for my look and dress and my conduct was (for lack of a better word) "weird". I was a "nerd" from every external vantage and wasn't very happy in social situations until I recognized this made efforts to find my niche. Let me clarify that in finding my niche, I never changed my 'likes' and interests.... I just swapped shells that let people relate and converse with me.
So, getting closer to my point, I ask myself "Why did it take me 3-4 years to realize this?". The over riding reason that I eventually came up with was (as you guessed from the post) Sesame Street. More specifically, some (not all) of the social lessons the show teaches to children and is replicated in many of the modern children's programming of the day (I'm 31... the show is probably totally different now).
The two key lessons I'm referring to are 1) you should never change yourself to fit in with others and 2) it is OK (and encouraging) to be abnormal ("weird"). In my early years I learned that being strange gives you attention and humor, but nothing really addressed where the fine line between funny and strange lies. It took too many years for me to get this and my behavior cycled between amusing and annoying for the period in question (more so than now ;) ). At the same time I was beaten over then head with "independent individuals" like the Sesame characters and reinforced with other entertainment (e.g. Punk Brewster,et al.) I ended up with a 'don't care' dress and no sense of whether I actually fit-in with anybody. In my mind, I was / looked / behaved "unique", not "abnormal".
So, why would Sesame Street teach these values if they are counter productive? The answer is that Sesame Street is not for me. The show is made to give urban kids hope and give them alternatives to gangs, crime, poverty, etc. This is an environment where too much conformity is literally deadly. Conforming to your piers can get you shot by a rival gang. Raising a sub-urban child with the same heavy handed message gets some mis-interpretations. I would venture to guess that "most" kids that watch Sesame Street aren't too worried about drive-bys.
So, am I unique in this take away? Was I raised on too much TV? Should children's programming be altered (or has it already been)? Am I just plain wrong about my analysis and it was really just the hormones? Should my mom have just bought me better clothes?
I sure as hell don't know and I'm going to stop here. Food for thought and all that.
posted by kinshadow at 10:01 AM
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