We took Nora to the London Acquarium today. It's the second time she's been, but the last time must have been about 6 months ago at least. Nevertheless she had extremely exciting memories of it so when we anounced we were going, she was over the moon. Needless to say she had an ace time (sadly bugger all pictures because both our cameras were ill suited to the conditions. Very dark).
We took a bus because Thameslink was knackered, it being a Sunday. At the bus stop was a guy who I occasionally see around. Nice bloke with a son who is Nora's age. His son is a tad on the quiet side and only speaks the odd word every now and then but is extremely physically active. Much more self confident that Nory is - at the library once he was bumbling around all over the furniture and softish seating blocks, falling off and knowing how to roll to get himself out of trouble... it was great because it encouraged Nora to do the same but I knew that she was in constant danger of falling badly and nastiness occurring.
Anyway. so we're just talking, you know. I was just about to say "we" but in fact it was Nora of course who excitedly said "Going to the acquarium to see sharks". Dad person said "Yeah, I'm going to start taking him to places like that soon", which made me feel immediately a little sorry for the kid but you know... shrug...
Anyway, the big thing was we got on the bus and carried on talking - and Dad person started talking about all the DVD's of the TV programmes that his son had, and reeled off all the programmes on "CBeebies" that his son loved. By programmes, I'm talking... he named more than 10, I would say. He was looking over at Nora whilst reeling these off, looking for that spark of recognition and Nora of course didn't know what "CBeebies" meant (it's the BBC very-young children's TV channel) never mind the programmes. He said "Pingu" and I thought, aha, well at least Nora can show some enthusiasm there so the conversation isn't entirely one sided but she wasn't bowled over by a mention of the lunatic penguin or anything.
Then he said a very strange thing. "I let him watch for about an hour after we've been out". The strange thing wasn't so much the horror (which would be the way I look at it, anyway) of putting a kid only just over 2 in front of the TV for a whole hour (the way he put it, he would do it for longer, but they put the kids shows on rotation, so after an hour, it starts back at the beginning), but that he justified this to himself by pretending that this was a choice the kid made. "I let him". Of course, at this stage in the game, the kid probably does choose, but only because that's what he's been taught.
What do other people do though - are we completely alone in only putting a marginal amount of TV in front of Noodle? I remember a photo of a friend's daughter watching "Finding Nemo" on a laptop when she was probably about Nora's age. Am I actually making her miss out on things? I kind of thought that films wise and that kind of thing I might start with something age appropriate and shortish at about 3, like the Wallace and Gromit shorts or "the Snowman" or something. Am I being too harsh? I'd be interrsted to know views. Except of course my comments may well reject yours. Hmph.
It occurred to me there may be more reasons than simply "because" (from a developmental perspective) as to why this kid barely speaks.
The differences in the way we're bringing Nora up can sometimes slap you around the face with such sharp contrasts. I dislike intensely the stupid background slightly smug emotions that these situations ellicit, but more than anything else, I looked at this lovely little kid and thought my God. There could well be very little difference between him and Nora from an intellectual capacity perspective. In all likelihood there isn't, really. And yet before he's started school, before he's even managed to say a whole sentence, the choices he has in his life ahead are slowly changing and possibly reducing.
And of course there is nothing to be done about it. If you talked about it to the kid's dad, what a wanker you would be! I said during conversation, that we tend to just have DVD's or videos for Nora so that we don't have to be slaves to the TV schedule. I didn't mention that she has 1 DVD and 2 videos, and she watches TV for 5 minutes a day approximately 3 days a week.
The more I've been writing this the uneasy I've become about how ugly, smug and self-satisfied I may be coming across - that isn't the conscious intention, but I'm not going to analyse it any more because then I'll just come across as a wearisome middle class git.
Posted by cait at February 19, 2006 09:15 PM