Digging in the dirt
Tacy has a friend whose mother carefully monitors what she watches on TV – no SpongeBob. She routinely takes her kids to the park (using the jogging stroller, of course) and does crafts with them. She also feeds her kids corn dogs and strawberry milk.
Meanwhile, I’m slowly weaning the kids off SpongeBob. I usually leave park outings to Kyle, and I’m a fan of Play-Doh, puzzles, and drawing with washable markers. I also serve baby carrots as a snack, even when Tacy has already consumed a large bowl of peas at lunch.
Who’s the better mother?
Neither of us. Our priorities are just different. We like each other and our kids like each other. We don’t have to align perfectly in order to be friends. If our priorities were truly incompatible, we simply wouldn’t see each other or allow our kids to play together.
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I’ve never understood the fascination with celebrity, and as such gawking has grown in popularity, I’m even more mystified by it. Not only does the public seem to be ever more insatiable where it comes to celebrity gossip, the celebs themselves are surprisingly willing and eager to put themselves in humiliating positions, if only to draw another 15 minutes of fame.
To wit, look at all of the reality TV shows that feature not just the has-beens (Rock of Love, The Surreal Life, Strange Love), but also those who were at their zeniths already (Newlyweds, The Simple Life). I watched a few episodes of The Surreal Life in Season 4, and I was painfully embarrassed for the cast members. I couldn’t understand why they would be willing to put such bizarre behavior on display for the public. Are the short-lived headlines really worth it? Have they no self-respect whatsoever?
Worse, the public obviously enjoys it. We eat up these shows. We watch E!, read TMZ.com, and even start our own websites dedicated to celebrity scrutiny. I have many blogging friends whom I love and respect and read insatiably – but I rarely read their celeb pieces, even though I’m certain that they’re just as well-written and entertaining as everything else they write.
I don’t mean to portray myself as immune to the celebrity craze. I’ve taken a swipe or two of my own, and I’ve even shared my kid’s snacks with a celebrity’s child. But I really don’t understand the level to which celebrity obsession has risen.
Am I better than the avid readers of People magazine?
No. My interests are just different.
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Until the confirmation of Jamie Lynn Spears’ teen pregnancy, I didn’t realize that she was the star of Zoey 101. I think I was only aware of the show itself because we watch other shows on Nickelodeon and we’ve seen it advertised occasionally.
There’s a lot of talk about television watching among children – what types of programs are appropriate for what ages, how much TV is too much and how to limit it, and the division of responsibility between parents and networks.
As a child, ours was not a big TV-watching household. We didn’t have cable. It was only when I visited friends that I watched MTV and George Carlin comedy specials and R-rated movies.
But I watched other shows at home that affected me more – in particular, two “very special” episodes of Diff’rent Strokes, both of which scared the living daylights out of me when they were supposed to be educational. One was about child molestation, and the other was about kidnapping.
Should I have watched those shows without my parents by my side to help explain the message? Probably not. Did my parents realize that those topics would be discussed in frank detail on the nights when those episodes aired? Probably not.
Was it a mistake for the network to air those episodes? I don’t think so. The mistake was not turning off the TV when it became apparent that the subject matter was beyond my capacity for understanding on my own and that the adults present (in both cases, my grandparents) weren’t prepared to help explain the message.
Should Nickelodeon air a program on teen pregnancy, driven by Spears’ recent announcement? That’s up to them.
However, we won’t watch it, just as we haven’t been watching Zoey 101.
The show, if you don’t know much about it (like I didn’t), is about a formerly all-boys boarding school that’s recently been opened up to girls. It’s a TEENick show, but the television content rating is TV Y7, meaning that it’s directed at children older than seven. Given that my oldest is not even six yet, I’d rather stick with TV Y and TV G shows for now.
That said, she has classmates and friends who watch shows like Zoey 101, Hannah Montana, and High School Musical. I don’t pass judgment on those parents. They know their children – what interests them and what they can handle. For now, my kids’ interests are just different.
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But I start to leave my “live and let live” philosophy behind when I see how celebrity scrutiny and judgment are taking priority over what I think really ought to matter to us.
Friday morning, I turned on the TV to catch the news of the Iowa caucus of the night before. The TV was already tuned to the local NBC affiliate, and the Today Show was on. Meredith Vieira was discussing Britney Spears’ hospitalization of the night before.
Not that we haven’t already heard far, FAR too much about the Spears’ family over the past several years – let alone the past several weeks – but now they’re pre-empting political discussion on what I thought was supposed to be a morning news show, not an apparent aspiring competitor of “The E! True Hollywood Story”. So I tuned to MSNBC instead, where I found the coverage I wanted.
It’s not my place to tell other people, whether they’re fellow bloggers or TV journalists, where their priorities should lie. I merely click away or change the channel. Our interests are different.
But we’ve entered an election year. As frivolous and mind-numbing as I’ve found the celebrity-paparazzi-public triangle of mutual masturbation to be all along, I’m really tired of it now.
While the Spears family may be facing issues to which the average person can relate (teen pregnancy, mental illness, custody battles), do we really need their challenges to be showcased in order to spark discussion in our own families? Does it take a TEENick special to get parents to address the topic of teen pregnancy with their own children?
And while celebrity voyeurism may be entertaining for many, do we really enjoy seeing major media outlets chronicle the mental breakdown of a young woman and its impact on her children? Why do we continue to seek out and consume personal tragedy, particularly when at the same time we vocalize such dissatisfaction with our country and its leadership?
We all have different priorities and interests. It’s just becoming more and more difficult for me to ignore the spreading appeal of celebrity gawking and its increasingly pervasive influence on people’s personal lives, especially when there’s so much else of real substance that deserves our attention.
January 6th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
The HSM songs are pretty catchy. Really. You should hear my 2 yr old belt them out.
But ITA on the news. Haven’t watched anything but The News Hour (on PBS) in forever.
January 7th, 2008 at 6:27 am
Super post. I am in complete agreement.
January 7th, 2008 at 9:40 am
I think it’s because in their fallability (and my bad spelling, apparently) it makes them human and perhaps it gives us a glimmer of hope that we too could be like them.
Not sure why we’d want that, although a million bucks sure wouldn’t hurt.
We should all make a pledge to take the hour we spend watching ET or the Insider and focus it on learning more about the candidates.
All while running our asses off on a treadmill.
Okay, so maybe that’s my resolution, but I’m always happy to have folks join me.
January 7th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
i’m one of the guilty ones…;)
January 7th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Ali, I love you anyway.
Besides, I can’t expect you to care about American politics.
January 7th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Well said.
We’re not tv watchers in our home. We have two channels to choose from. I prefer it that way.
I’d much rather debate politics than whether or not Britney is crazy or just stoned.
January 7th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I swore off TV for a while during that Anna Nicole mania. I just couldn’t stand it.
January 9th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
It’s a mania, all right. I was watching coverage and reaction to Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, turned to another channel for a different perspective, and found a Britney story on another news channel. Aargh. Their priorities were definitely not the same as mine!
January 10th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
This is such a well-written piece on this subject, J; I’m so busy fighting off the invasion of that kind of information, either visual or worded, in my life, and I sometimes wonder about the hows/whys/wherefores and sometimes just mostly how the F*** do I keep it away from me and my family?
I want it to not be this way, is mostly where I end up in my head with the subject. I always feel sick when I’ve encountered it in its various rot-gutting forms. Like waaaay too many chips with dip.
*mmmm chips with dip*
(I actually prefer the chip/dip tummy ache to the celebrity post-gorging nausea.)