Q-Dawg and the News
I used to be very interested in the great big world around me. I would love to watch the news and find out all about the interesting and sometimes awful things going on here on planet Earth. That has all changed since I’ve become a mother. Now I’m so uninformed if there is an actual apocalypse you might want to give me a call and let me know about it.
Some of you might be horrified by this revelation but I promise you it’s not because I’m irresponsible or I don’t care. It’s quite the opposite really and I think this morning’s events with my son will demonstrate why:
I got my older children off to school but I was still feeling a little bit groggy and tired so I decided to turn on the morning news. My 5 year old son and his baby sister were playing at my feet seemingly oblivious to the dialogue coming from the newscasters on the tv.
After a few stories we hear this one, “A 9 year old boy shot and killed his 2 year old brother in the west valley last night. Apparently the boy took his mom’s boyfriend’s gun from the closet and accidentally shot his younger brother who later died at the hospital.â€
My son looks up at me and say, “Mom, why did that big boy shoot that little boy?â€
“Oh honey, it was an accident. The big boy found a gun in his house and it accidentally went off and it shot his baby brother. You should never touch any guns that you find and never let your friends touch guns they find either!†I replied.
“Ok mom, I will never touch real guns,†pledged my son.
We sat in silence for a few more minutes listening to the insignificant stories on the news until we heard this little snippet, “Britney Spears seems to be taking her new found freedom a little bit too far. She appears to be going out on the town and not wearing any underwear.â€
My son looks at me and say, “Mom, why didn’t that girl wear any underwear?â€
“I guess she just forgot to put them on when she was getting dressed,†I replied.
“She really shouldn’t forget to put her underpants on Mom,†my son stated.
“I know. She should really work on remembering to put on her underpants when she’s getting dressed,†I replied.
We go back to listening and playing for the next few minutes until we hear, “Flatulent passenger grounds flight in Tennessee.â€
Oh for the love of Pete!
Click!
Click!
Click!
“Fruit salad! Yummy yummy!â€
I had to ban television news from our house when my oldest was about 4 and he became traumatized from watching our neighbor’s house burn down. Once I was flipping channels and we saw a new report of a house being washed away in a flood—“Quick turn it before Nathaniel sees!” So much awful stuff on there.
Comment by Susan M — December 8, 2006 @ 12:39 pm
And then there are the commercials. Even when you are watching something seemingly safe, they can be pretty creepy. We were watching King of the Hill last night, and the first commercial was for a video of women playing poker naked.
Comment by C Jones — December 8, 2006 @ 2:57 pm
Television news is a tough one. What is reported and how it is reported seems to be either driven by political agendas or profits. Unfortunately it might be one of the most ‘dangerous’ things on TV.
I get my news from the bloggernacle.
Comment by Eric Nielson — December 8, 2006 @ 3:08 pm
Aint that the truth! That’s why I love using our DVR. I think it has totally ruined me for regular tv watching now.
Comment by Kristen J — December 8, 2006 @ 3:09 pm
Yep! That’s one reason we don’t have tv. The other is we’d be addicted to it all day, but we won’t discuss that. I think the news is sometimes worse than the other stuff.
Comment by Jamie J — December 8, 2006 @ 3:50 pm
The beauty of not getting any good American TV channels. Of course, this means we have to watch High School Musical and Lizzie McGuire… The Movie every day…
Comment by meems — December 8, 2006 @ 11:51 pm
I only listen to NPR news and rarely watch much TV.
I never even heard about what Britney did. I haven’t heard any dog-bite news stories in years. And I have no idea what the current offering of commercials is.
Yes, I am smug. And yes, I am insufferable. But a little less so today than yesterday.
Comment by Seth R. — December 9, 2006 @ 10:09 pm
Well geez Seth, I don’t know how you can sleep at night not knowing what Britney did!
Comment by Kristen J — December 10, 2006 @ 11:03 am
I have been a fan of NPR (national public radio) for years. I do think that lots of things can be listened to with less ill effect than the gory pictures on television. Back in the 1970s in family student housing at BYU, I encouraged other moms to listen, and they acted like I was crazy. I don’t know how much of it was that KBYU is not an NPR affiliate; I had to listen to the University of Utah station. At least I got my husband hooked.
I know what Britney did, because they mentioned it on the ABC News Shuffle podcast. I don’t watch television news, but I dowload the podcasts for ABC News This Week, ABC News Shuffle, McLaughlin Report, Washington Week with Gwen Ifill. I listen to them in that order, and may or may not get through all of them, but never miss George Stephanopoulos. I tried some others but they did not seem as insighful/interesting.
We had a talk about this topic at our RS book club. We had read NUMBER THE STARS by Lois Lowry and discussed about what age it was appropriate to teach about the holocaust, a conversation that expand to include current scary news events. It turns out that some of us listen to NPR, and as archaic as it seems, newspapers also seem to be a good source of news for those hoping to avoid sensationalism.
Comment by Naismith — December 10, 2006 @ 1:55 pm
I forgot that unlike Seth R., I don’t feel the least bit smug, just anxious to try to remain unspotted from the world.
One of things that came out in our book club discussion was that all the baby-boomers in the room had recurrent childhood nightmares about the atomic bomb and/or the Russians invading. This is from having to do air raid drills, worry about the nearest bomb shelter, being just old enough to understand some of what was going on during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and reading books like FAILSAFE, ON THE BEACH, ALAS BABYLON, and so on.
Comment by Naismith — December 10, 2006 @ 2:14 pm
You know I like your point about newspapers. It seems like I forget they exist sometimes.
Actually I do tend to check the headlines out on the internet search engines so I’m not totally in the dark.
Comment by Kristen J — December 10, 2006 @ 6:08 pm
Kristen J,
With a new baby in the house, sleeping at night is a bit of a moot point.
Comment by Seth R. — December 11, 2006 @ 9:22 am
Once they learn to read, though, those newspaper headlines can create some ‘fun’ discussions.
Comment by Téa — December 18, 2006 @ 1:47 am