Sesame Street

[abigailvr]

I've been watching Sesame Street with DS recently, and I've noticed a disturbing trend. They frequently show babies, but always with bottles. In the past week's episodes Baby Bear's mother, Mama Bear had a baby. They show her being brought home in her infant seat, and being carried in a Bjorn type thing, and drinking from a bottle. I realize it might be awkward with puppets to show breastfeeding, but they didn't even try! In one of the episodes Elmo's World was all about babies, and they got bottles too, even a baby cow.

I want to write them a letter, but I feel like I'm over-reacting a little bit. What do you all think?

[pjlioness]

Not overreacting.

Go ahead and send that letter. We all should. This is an educational show, for heaven's sake...and on PBS! They should know/do better. We don't watch it much, but I have noticed their "little" omission myself.

[Colorful~Mama]

yeah

we noticed too and i sent an email off the web page a few days ago letting pbs know how disappointed i was that they missed such a wonderful opportunity to promote breastfeeding.

[Meiri]

I gave up on Sesame Street years ago, having noticed this "trend" back when DS was still nursing (in the 90's).



Mr.Rogers OTOH, when talking about food and how babies eat, shared a book in which many!(not just a token one) of the pictures were of babies nursing.

[mom3]

I vote for Mister Rogers too. He has an episode that shows several nursing mothers, breast, areola, nipple and all! No mistake about how those babies get their milk.

[Greaseball]

You can buy bottles and every other baby thing with Sesame Street characters on it. I wonder if they have a grant from Nestle?

Elmo almost always manages to show a baby with a bottle on "Elmo's World."

[abigailvr]

I told my husband I was going to write them a letter because they only show babies with bottles and never breastfeeding. He said, "well, if they showed that, half the country would protest." I replied, "Then half the country needs to be enlightened!" I think he thinks I'm nuts.

And you're right, the babies are almost always on Elmo's World. That's where the one we saw today was.

[Meiri]

Your DH is wrong. According to someone I used to know, back in the 70's(when her youngest was watching SS) they not only showed breastfeeding, they had a human family living on the Street who had a new baby and she breastfed him, On The Show.

Oh how Far they have fallen!

I know they get support from Nestle because our PBS station runs the little blurbs about who the support for the show comes from and for years in the 90's they always included Juicy Juice, a Nestle product.

[abigailvr]

That's when I was watching SS too. Hrmph.

Ours has a blurb about quaker oats and spaghetti-Os on right before SS. I wonder if one of those is a Nestle copmany. (AOL too, but I know they aren't.)

[owensmom]

I didn't see Quaker or Spaggeti-o on the Nestle Site, but I now know I can't drink Kern's nectars.

http://www.nestleusa.com/consumerSit...brand_home.asp

[LunaMom]

There were a bunch of mamas here who wrote to PBS after the Elmo's World episode about babies aired and Elmo said, "Babies drink from bottles!" It was quite a while ago, and I don't remember if anyone got a reply!

[abigailvr]

Owensmom, thanks for the link!

LunaMom, that's exactly the segment I saw. I still haven't written to them, I think I'll go do it now.

[mom3]

T Anyone else look at the Ne(a)stle link? I think it's kind of ironic they make a product called NIPS .