Censorship

Before I had Hollis I was a firm believer in self censorship. I felt that parents were solely responsible for the television shows, movies and books their children were exposed to. I have come to realize the flaw in this mindset: TV commercials. Seriously, are there no standards? Now, I understanding advertising revenue and demographic and whatever, but sometimes my three year old watches football with his father. Or we might want to watch the news while dinner is cooking. Or maybe just have something on that is not animated. Hollis has learned more for 30 second spots than he has in 6 months of preschool. Maybe you remember the foot in the toilet incident, well I am pretty sure he got that from a Two and a Half Men commercial. During this spot, which came on as I was looking for the remote to turn the TV off, had the two main characters one of which was standing in a toilet. The volume was turned down, in an attempt to keeping him from hearing anything he shouldn't, but apparently the picture was all he needed. A few days later he asked me about the ad and why, "that daddy was standing in the potty". I tried to explain that it wasn't real, but I don't think it took. "Well, what do you expect, having network TV on", you may say, but what about Noggin on demand? While going through the two page on demand menu in order to get to a Noggin show, they ran a commercial for the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler movie, Baby Mama. Having learned my lesson, I again had the volume turned down - too late - he had already seen the scene with Amy Poehler's character using the sink instead of the toilet. Again, lots of conversation about make believe as well as why we don't potty in the sink. So my stance on censorship has softened somewhat over the last year or so...now I think all commercials should be heavily censored with preschoolers in mind. I think this is a public policy we can all get behind.

And now, the obligatory Hollis picture.
Hollis and John taking their "mini nap".