Okay, I had to get this off my chest. As some background info, we have a television set in our house, but it's NOT hooked up for TV channels. It's only for watching DVD's on once or twice a month.
Our daughter qualifies as a head-start student, 'cause my husband and I are income-free right now due to grad school.
So, last night was the head-start school's parent's meeting. Often there will be a presenter at these meetings, to give us in-depth information about organic foods or dental care or home safety or whatever. It's usually pretty informative.
The presenter last night was a representative of PBS, and the subject was ostensibly about children, the media, and violence. The presentation started off well; helpful facts about how the scary stuff out there in the media can be very frightening and confusing for small children. It made me glad DD isn't exposed to it.
HERE'S THE THING. The presenter moved on to talk about how a child needs a happy medium- not too much TV, and not too little. Um, what? At first I thought I hadn't heard her correctly, so I raised my hand and said "But, of course, no TV is also fine for a child, right?"
Nope. Apparently I am letting DD down by not exposing her to PBS's fine programming. The argument used on me was that, when DD gets older, she'll want to connect with her peer group, and she can't do that unless she watches the same shows.
WHAT????? Do I need to let her watch, for example, age-inappropriate horror movies, if that's what her peer group is doing? That is a very dangerous, very foolish line of logic.
I am so angry that I sat through this kind of skewed, self serving, commercial-for-PBS during a government funded school meeting. And I'm even angrier that it's the low income parents like me who are getting this pro-TV message. This is highly debatable, and I don't want to offend anyone, but I feel that low income or no-income parents like me are more vulnerable to this kind of propaganda for two reasons- 1. We are more tempted to use the TV as child-care-relief, since we cannot afford actual back-up care. (I know I'm tempted, anyway. That's why I disconnected the d**n thing.) 2. Low income parents have not all had fair access to higher education, and can therefore be more willing to listen to so-called "experts" who claim to know what's best for children.
We low-income parents just as smart and vigilant as any other parents, but because of these reasons I feel we are the group who least deserves to have this kind of in-your-face TV pushing thrown at us.
Would this have made anyone else mad?
Our daughter qualifies as a head-start student, 'cause my husband and I are income-free right now due to grad school.
So, last night was the head-start school's parent's meeting. Often there will be a presenter at these meetings, to give us in-depth information about organic foods or dental care or home safety or whatever. It's usually pretty informative.
The presenter last night was a representative of PBS, and the subject was ostensibly about children, the media, and violence. The presentation started off well; helpful facts about how the scary stuff out there in the media can be very frightening and confusing for small children. It made me glad DD isn't exposed to it.
HERE'S THE THING. The presenter moved on to talk about how a child needs a happy medium- not too much TV, and not too little. Um, what? At first I thought I hadn't heard her correctly, so I raised my hand and said "But, of course, no TV is also fine for a child, right?"
Nope. Apparently I am letting DD down by not exposing her to PBS's fine programming. The argument used on me was that, when DD gets older, she'll want to connect with her peer group, and she can't do that unless she watches the same shows.
WHAT????? Do I need to let her watch, for example, age-inappropriate horror movies, if that's what her peer group is doing? That is a very dangerous, very foolish line of logic.
I am so angry that I sat through this kind of skewed, self serving, commercial-for-PBS during a government funded school meeting. And I'm even angrier that it's the low income parents like me who are getting this pro-TV message. This is highly debatable, and I don't want to offend anyone, but I feel that low income or no-income parents like me are more vulnerable to this kind of propaganda for two reasons- 1. We are more tempted to use the TV as child-care-relief, since we cannot afford actual back-up care. (I know I'm tempted, anyway. That's why I disconnected the d**n thing.) 2. Low income parents have not all had fair access to higher education, and can therefore be more willing to listen to so-called "experts" who claim to know what's best for children.
We low-income parents just as smart and vigilant as any other parents, but because of these reasons I feel we are the group who least deserves to have this kind of in-your-face TV pushing thrown at us.
Would this have made anyone else mad?
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