Gone are the days when the mime-like antics of Pink Panther or Tom and Jerry were all the rage. While characters like Bugs
Bunny, Donald Duck and Tweety are forever enshrined in our brains they don’t quite excite young kids anymore. Today, cartoon like the Power Puff Girls, Johnny Bravo, Ed & Eddie, Cow & Chicken and many others are popular with impressionable kids and their contents range form the violent to the obnoxious to downright obscene. Some of it is not even subliminal – Cow & Chicken, for example, has a cow with embarrassingly huge udders and a big pink butt that the said cow is always using to its best advantage. As a
mother, I can’t wonder where such graphic images fit into an innocent Kid’s concept of entertainment.
Nuzhat Tariq is a home maker and a mother of a daughter and son aged 11 and 9. Voicing her concern over TV and computer programmers she says. “My husband and I try to make sure that out kids watch TV with us around. We try to encourage them to watch programmes like Blazing Teens, Scooby Do and Tom & Jerry rather than the other cartoons or even the ones dubbed in Hindi. Cable TV channels that are not meant for them are a strict no-no. In fact, when they are idle in afternoons we disconnect the cable connection. But there are times when you have to trust the kids to make their own decisions after making them realize that they should not watch what’s not meant for them.”
Mozamila Saeed, a dietitian and a mother of two sons aged 9 and 7 has a 9-to-5 job and finds it impossible to keep a constant eye on her kids, TV viewing. She sys, “I have sat down with them time and again to tell them how important it is to watch good clean stuff meant for them. I have told them that there will be times when temptation will lead them to watch stuff not meant for them which is basically, violence, nudity and obscenity, and that they should turn to their grandparents for help when this happens. I discourage them form watching Indian channels since they are unpredictable with content. I have tried to encourage my kids to indulge in activities like walking, swimming and playing in the park rather than spending time staring at the idiot box. I have also done away with the TV in my room because one teaches by example.”
Some new additions to TV channels for kids like Baby TV and the local Wik kid have however, provided some welcome relief to concerned parents, especially mothers, with informative, entertaining content, Baby TV is a smashing hut with toddlers and pre-scholars with its colorful and musical variety of programmes that teach kids manner, poems, songs, cooking and painting.