Arthur and PBS
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| Fri, 01-28-2005 - 1:39pm |
Well as many of you may have heard on last nights news. The PBS station has an episode of Arthur ready to go that has Buster visting a lesiban family with children. Buster apparently is trying to teach children tollerance of people who are diffrent and introducing diffrent families to our children via a cartoon. From what I understand it depicts a cartoon character and real persons.
Apparently the media got a hold of the subject and PBS decided not to air the show.
I was wondering how you felt about this subject. Would you want your young children watching this type of programming.
PBS is not in the habbit of advertising what the next show will be about. So how was PBS going to inform parents that this was going to be showen to your young children? They don't have an answer to that question.
Now I know that some people feel Burt and Erine are gay. And the purple teletubbie is gay and goodness who knows what political person or religous leader will come out and say that this cartoon character is gay as well...But come on. SS never came out and said Burt and Ernie are gay. I don't think SS has ever addressed this issue. But this is not the issue I want to debate. Just want to know how you feel about this. And if it had aired with out your knowledge and your child saw it what would you do? HOw would you handle the questions about this that a 3 yr old might ask you or your 7 yr old.

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He is bound to hear or see it soon, and I rather it be with me so I am able to answer the questions he has about it and give him the beliefs I think he should hear on it.
I don't think there is nothing wrong with different people and showing children about it. Better to show them the non-judgmental way, then having some mean kid tell me something wrong or a adult who does not agree on it tell him another.
It would have been fine for me and Archie.
Becky and Archie 3/1/04
Becky and Archie 3/1/04
and baby due Jan 26!
I think I will have to respectfully disagree. I have a different view. Because of my religious views I would have been very upset if they had aired this episode. In the past I never felt I needed to screen the cartoons or children's television on pbs. I do not check what the episodes are about because I trusted them to keep the children's programs safe from adult topics.
You would have to understand my children though. I am very liberal about a lot of things. My children go to art shows where nudity is tastefully displayed. They have seen a few movies where maybe a woman has taken off her blouse. My boys are not embarrassed by this because they have been raised to not be ashamed of the human body. I don't want my boys to grow up snickering behind their hands when they happen to catch a glimpse of a women's breast. But they are also not thinking or equating the human form with sexual acts.
My seven year is also extremely spiritual. He chose to be baptized when he first turned seven and literally jumped in the pool he was so excited. He believes the bible is
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ITA Traci... you and I have the same viewpoints. Natalie does not know anything about sexual orientation other than that mommies & daddies get married & God puts a baby in the mommy's tummy when he decides it's time for them to have one... that's it. She's only 5, and I don't want to have to explain that sometimes there are 2 mommies or 2 daddies instead. When I do feel that she has reached the appropriate age, then I will explain it from a Biblical standpoint as to how we believe it.
Yes there are people with different lifestyles than ours, but it doesn't mean that we have to openly accept it and say that it's OK, when we believe that it is NOT. To air children's programming that teaches "tolerance" overrides many parents' personal beliefs. I don't want my children taught that something is OK, when I feel that it emphatically
Thank goodness. I thought I was the only one who was going to be offended by this. And that is why I didn't come right out and say that I feel PBS is doing a huge disservice to it's viewers.
It is heart breaking that other people do not have a problem with this kind of topic being shown to young children.
I just erased my entire post up to here. I think I could start to offend peple if I am not careful. So I will end with this said.
I feel PBS is wrong. I am glad that the show did not air.
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Well, its too bad that because people get angry about something, no one is able to see it or experience it.
Either way, it would have been nice if they announced that it would be played and then let the parents choose if their kids would watch it.
Just because some don't want to see something, does not mean others don't want to.
ok, seeing as this isn't a debate board i don't wanna get all nasty :D, but you voiced the same objection i've seen on other boards and i have to raise a rusty voice of desent, lol.
you said:
>>>They would have aired the show with out my consent, not to mention the fact that sexuality does not belong in a children's program.
this is the central issue most people are having with this episode, the idea that it was directly addressing sexuality, or in this case homosexuality. anyone who's watched postcards from buster as religiously as we do in this family (it's actually part of our social studies curric, lol) knows that the entire point of the show is broadening horizons and letting kids see how other kids live across the US. they visit mormon families, bi-racial families, single parent families, step-families, families of various ethnicities, etc etc. they don't address sexuality in any of those, and they wouldn't have addressed sexuality in this episode. they would have addressed a different family dynamic, that's all. they wouldn't have sat down with diagrams and pictures and told anyone's children exactly how lesbian's have sex any more than they would have explained how a black mommy and a white daddy have sex. it's a kid's show, not PORN, lol. i guess i think it's a situation of adults assuming that children think like adults. when adults think of homosexuality they tend to think first and foremost about homosexual SEX, while kids automatically think of what the show would have been addressing, ie, what life would be like with two mommies.
you say yourself that "But they are also not thinking or equating the human form with sexual acts", and i think the same is true when it comes to this. children simply do not automatically equate homosexuality with sex, they think of it the same way kids think of boobs "huh, that's a boob, moving on" "hmm..sometimes two ladies get married, moving on."
traci, you know i have a dd who is somewhat like your ds. an inquisitive little mind that is perceptive beyond it's years and thinks deeper than your average bear. obviously you and i feel differently about homosexuality and same sex couples (i personally don't give two hoots about what ANYONE does between the sheets of their own bed, gays being no exception) but i'd bet good money your son would react just the same as alleria did when she got her first exposure to the love that crosses the gender barriar. she turned to me and said "mom, why are those ladies kissing?" i replied "b/c they love each other." "like you and dad?" "yup." her response? "oh, ok." end of story. weeks later someone used a derogatory term for it and she asked what that meant, and i said it was a mean way of saying homosexual, which led to a discussion of what a homosexual was (a person who loves *NOT has sex with* someone of the same gender) and then i had several more months of her pointing them out like some rare species at the zoo, ("hey mom, look, there's a homo-in-sexual!!") LMAO, and that was it again. she has a decent working knowledge of an alternative lifestyle that has nothing to do with sex, and i think that's all the show was intending to offer.
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