stupid censorship

Having a child in the house, generally, means you start recognizing that not everything you say is appropriate for little ears to hear. This especially becomes the case when said child begins to talk and, worse yet, repeat every word you say.

My daughter loves Spongebob and she was watching the show almost daily. She would run to the couch, hop on, thrust the remote at the me and say "watch Bob". Of course I wasn't going to say no, but it eventually became a problem. At first it was cute, her quoting random phrases. Hopping out of the tub mid-bath all soapy and saying "bath dewivwy". Or the time we were in a Mexican restaurant when she suddenly clapped her hands over her eyes and began to vigorously shake her head back and forth while emphatically shouting "I'm cheating! I'm cheating!" All of these things and many more were just so darn cute, but the most recent episodes became a problem. One episode in particular was "Pearl's Birthday". Jubilee would be pretending to drink something and suddenly spit and say "dishwater". Now this could be a problem. Or she would pretend to eat something and say "stale cockcorn". Another problem. The last thing I need is for people to think I'm feeding my child inappropriate food items, especially dishwater. One of the final moments came when she started saying, seemingly without provocation, "that's stupid". Oh so many SpongeBob episodes have the word stupid in them. My favorite quote being when Sandy turns to Patrick and asks "Don't you have to go be stupid somewhere else?" and Patrick responds "Not until 4".

Oh the dismay! Spongebob would have to be faithfully edited and all episodes containing stupid, dumb, and idiot would have to be avoided. Also the episode where Flatts the Flounder threatened during the ENTIRE episode to kick SpongeBob's butt resulting in several days of "kick you butt" being repeated.

I decided, and my mom agreed, it would be better for Jubi to watch more PBS Sprout. http://www.sproutletsgrow.com
She came to enjoy other shows, such as Pingu, Kipper, and Thomas the Tank Engine. She sings along with the theme songs from Make Way for Noddy and Dragon Tales and it is just absolutely adorable. She doesn't talk as much as she used to, but when she does, it makes more sense and it is in the appropriate context and not just random quotes from television. We've basically had to reboot her computer.

I did, however, notice her continued use of the word "stupid" and the more recent addition of "shoot". I have no idea where the last one came from . . . I really don't. I then realized that the other things we watch on television contain things she probably shouldn't be hearing either. Imagine my complete shock when I heard "a**" on Law & Order during a Prime Time slot. I couldn't believe TNT was putting that kind of language in their scripts. I suppose I should be more worried if she comes out with "crime scene" or "homicide" at daycare, but I can hope they'll write it off as an unintelligible utterance. I also noticed that I, and other members of my household, fling around the word "stupid" like we used to whack a birdie during a game of badminton.

Example:
"did you hear that so-and-so did such-and-such?"
"well that's just stupid!"
"yeah! that is stupid."
"hey! I can't find my stupid keys!"
"did you check over there?"
"no . . . that was a stupid place to put them!"

And there you have it. I can try to stop my daughter from hearing inappropriate language on television, but it won't matter if I'm unable to filter out this language from daily conversation between me and my family. These words have become so commonplace we don't even realize we use them.