A vignette of parental influence
Dec. 14th, 2007 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsidheAs reported by Mim not so very long ago:
Mim and Abbi are shopping for bread and such like. On their rounds, they go past those abominable Bratz dolls.
Abbi responds instantly: “Ugh, Bratz! Yuck!”
Mim looks down. “Where did you hear that, honey?”
Abbi looks up and replies, “You keep saying it, mummy.”
So there you go. Even with the bombardment of ads for objectionable crap, it is still possible to influence children against it: just let them know how much you dislike it. Children are impressionable creatures, and their parents are their rôle models. They might chafe and fight, but they still take who they are and what they should like from the grownups they spend all their time around.
To a degree, of course. But it is thought provoking how much they take from you. And while the Bratz==bad thing is, in our opinion, a good development, there are other less happy memes which are also passed on, will you or nil you. Some of what Abbi and Susi are getting from me are not things I am proud of, nor that I would like to see reflected in my beautiful darling girls. But the only way to do that is to change myself, so that those memes are not there to be copied.
And that's hard. But not nearly as hard as dealing with the results of not making the effort, and even if success is not total, the effort to change is part of the lesson, too.
Mim and Abbi are shopping for bread and such like. On their rounds, they go past those abominable Bratz dolls.
Abbi responds instantly: “Ugh, Bratz! Yuck!”
Mim looks down. “Where did you hear that, honey?”
Abbi looks up and replies, “You keep saying it, mummy.”
So there you go. Even with the bombardment of ads for objectionable crap, it is still possible to influence children against it: just let them know how much you dislike it. Children are impressionable creatures, and their parents are their rôle models. They might chafe and fight, but they still take who they are and what they should like from the grownups they spend all their time around.
To a degree, of course. But it is thought provoking how much they take from you. And while the Bratz==bad thing is, in our opinion, a good development, there are other less happy memes which are also passed on, will you or nil you. Some of what Abbi and Susi are getting from me are not things I am proud of, nor that I would like to see reflected in my beautiful darling girls. But the only way to do that is to change myself, so that those memes are not there to be copied.
And that's hard. But not nearly as hard as dealing with the results of not making the effort, and even if success is not total, the effort to change is part of the lesson, too.