May. 7, 2007 - Why I don't like the Backyardigans!!!!!!!

Posted in For Your Health

          For those of you who might not watch TV or who don't have access to Nickelodeon, there is a cute little show on for preschoolers called the Backyardigans.  The basic plot of the program is that these 4 or 5 little preschool children share a backyard.  They meet in the backyard and go on these great adventures together.  Of course, as they begin to play the screen they are in slowly turns into the location of their next adventure.  So far I have seen them go to the desert and the South Pole. 

          Much to my dismay, my children love this show.  Even my almost 8 and 6 yod love it.  Of course, I think they like to watch it partyly because it's TV and partyly because they still carry within their hearts the innocences of their preschool years (which is really such a blessing.) 

          Two weeks ago, my 6yod ds came to into my craft room and announced that he wished he was on the Backyardigans.  I asked him why he wanted to be on the show and he told me that it was because they get to go on adventures.  "URGH!!!!!" was my first thought.  Ahhh, the magic of adults trying to market toward children.  My disdain for the children's television began to reach it's head. 

          So why don't I like such a cute show like the Backyardigans?  Because it's deceiving to my children.  Up to a certain age, children cannot differentiate between what is reality and what is pretend.  So they really can't understand what the writers of the show were writing intending.  They were simply illustrating that these children meet in the backyard (like many average American child) and they create adventures for themselves.  But when preschoolers particularly watch this show, they don't understand that when that screen changes to a different setting for their adventure, the children are really just pretending to be in that place.  It's supposed to be in the head of the children on the screen.  But any child watching sees them go to different places.  They make their adventures come too much to life. 

          I want my children to live in the real world and act out their own adventures.  I want them to go in the backyard and do just what those little cartoon preschoolers are doing.  But when they watch TV shows they somehow loose the ability to pretend.  We let them watch a little more TV this past weekend.  Saturday and Sunday afternoon we sent them into the backyard.  What did they do?  They sat on the porched and made annoying noises and did nothing.  We finally told them that the porch was off limits and they had to go out on the grass and play.  Still nothing.  The imagination of my children has been sucked out of their hearts and minds. 

          I think this is about to turn into a rant about the TV.  Or at least I wish it could.  When my oldest dd was a baby, my dh and I went on a TV fast for 30 days.  We broke it and watched the superbowl that year and then we turned it off until the Stanley Cup finals (I think that was one of the years the Dallas Stars were in the playoffs.)  Then we turned it off again and it pretty much stayed off. . .until I got pregnant with my 2nd.  We've been through several times where we fasted from the TV but for whatever reason it always comes back on.  Yesterday I had had enough.  I told my dh that I hated the TV.  He told me he loved it (meaning that he loves his sin.)  I told him that I loved it too and that was why I hated it so much.  It distracts me from the things of God.  As we were talking he walked over and unplugged it.  It's a flat screen and it's heavy.  He went to get the cart we use to wheel it off and we put it in the closet.  But I was very blunt with him. . .I want it out of our house.  There is nothing redeeming about that box.  Sure, we watch movies as a family sometime.  But we did that this weekend and it still numbed the brain of my children.  We didn't spent time relating.  And we ended up watching "Facing the Giants" which we all have memorized because we've watched it so much.  I could keep it to be informed about bad weather (you know all those potential tornadoes that could come through here - the news coverage on the weather is really starting to get out of hand.  I am a weather junkie.  I will sit and watch all the stupid coverage until I have worked myself into a panic and have the closet under the stairs cleaned out for our safety.  It just feeds my sinful fear.) 

          The sad thing about putting it away is that we both started to miss it.  We didn't know what to do with ourselves last night.  We've done this before.  It takes a few days to adjust and then we'll be back to reading or spending our time constructively.  But it was really sad to find just how addicted we are to it.  I was also blunt and told my dh that if he wanted to sell it I did care.  It's up to him.  He bought it and I feel that it's his.  I am praying though.  As hard as that sell will be on the whole family, I know that in a year, we really won't miss it.  And we'll be better for getting rid of it. 

          The Backyardigans still exist.  There names are Jenny, Josh, Ally, and Drew (and eventually there will be a Josiah added to the cast.)  My prayer for all this change is that the adventures in my backyard will far surpass any adventure they watched a bunch of preschool cartoons go on.