Letting daughter watch "gay friendly" shows?

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ellam25

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Hi all,
I am very picky what I let my 3 year old daughter watch. We don’t have cable so it’s easy to control and she doesn’t watch a lot, maybe every other day. Anyway, I grew up with the PBS show Arthur and have all the books. I have been letting her read them and watch an episode occasionally after reading a story. Well of course I was disappointed when they came out with a new episode where Mr. Ratburn gets married to another man. Originally I thought that episode will be forbidden but I would let her continue watching the show and reading the old books. Well my dad is telling me I must basically burn all of the books and never let her watch another Arthur episode again. I disagreed with him; I told him we will not let her watch the particular episode and since we watch it on youtube it’s easy to avoid it. But he accused me of basically being a bad parent because I’m either “for or aganist” homosexuality and by letting her watch Arthur I am condoning it. What do you guys think should I completely ban Arthur from our house (and please, I don’t want to hear, “We don’t even own a TV, blahblah” I’ve already gotten that spiel from my dad and we are okay with her watching television occasionally. There are many children who have ipads and electronics which we do not let her have.)
 
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You are your child’s parent, not your dad. You don’t need to burn the Arthur books, and there are years and years worth of old Arthur out there that your child can watch safely.

So, I would just make sure I know which shows are problematic for viewing.

Your dad needs to butt out. Perhaps do not discuss everything with him, it’s not necessary.
 
Arthur’s been around over 20 years.
This episode is not appropriate for young children.
However, this one episode does not “spoil it backwards”.
Use your best judgement.
 
I wouldn’t ban Arthur or get rid of the books. However, I would watch episodes and make sure that Mr. Ratburn’s relationship doesn’t become an ongoing thing.
We unsubscribed from Highlights because they knuckled under to the gay agenda. I find it hard to believe how much it’s being pushed to kids.
 
As others have said I don’t think that you necessarily need to ban the show. Arthur has been around for many years and most of the episodes are fine. I will admit that when the episode that you reference came on I was not even paying attention, and my children told me after the fact that Mr. Ratburn married a man. It never would have occurred to me to monitor them while watching that show, but I’ve learned my lesson. I made sure to explain to my children that things like this do happen in real life, but that it’s not what God wants. I also told them that we must not treat people who do this any differently, and that they must not go out of their way to comment on other people’s lifestyles at their ages.That episode came on again just the other day, and my kids independently changed the channel since it was the “bad episode”.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time I’ve had to have this conversation with them about a kid’s show. I’ve actually had to ban Sheera, a different version of which I watched with no problems growing up. The agenda is right in your face with this one (the writer of the show is even on record as saying that her goal was to make gay marriage seem normal to her audience) and the show has no other value at all. I also have to closely monitor the new Voltron. That one was painful for me, as I loved the old Voltron as a child.
 
repentant2 said:
I find it even more hard to believe there’s people who deny it’s even being pushed on them 😦
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I overheard a conversation between pre-schoolers the other day. They were playing house with little dolls.

Boy: we need a dad for our family.
Girl: we don’t need a dad. We can have two dads or two moms. Either way is okay.
Boy: silence. Looked confused.
 
First of all, you are the parent, you decide what your child reads and listens to.
ellam25 said:
Well my dad is telling me I must basically burn all of the books and never let her watch another Arthur episode again
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In my opinion, your daughter is very likely to meet gay people, to have friends with gay family members, so, I do not think it is the end of the world if she sees a cartoon where two talking aardvarks who are males marry each other.
 
Your dad is being overbearing and unreasonable.

The normalization of homosexual relationships on TV will remove conscientious objections to the idea. It works on adults so it goes without saying that it works on children.

Fortunately, mainstreaming sexually immoral behavior is happening at the same time that it is increasingly easy to customize and choose whatever media you watch.
 
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I am old enough to remember when preachers railed from the pulpit about Billy Crystal’s role on “Soap”.
 
TheLittleLady said:
In my opinion, your daughter is very likely to meet gay people, to have friends with gay family members, so, I do not think it is the end of the world if she sees a cartoon where two talking aardvarks who are males marry each other.
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Indeed. I hope the first conversation I have with my kids about homosexuality does not begin with them saying “My friend has two moms” or “My friend has two dads”.
 
Viki63 said:
I overheard a conversation between pre-schoolers the other day. They were playing house with little dolls.

Boy: we need a dad for our family.
Girl: we don’t need a dad. We can have two dads or two moms. Either way is okay.
Boy: silence. Looked confused.
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That could be simple innocence. I’ve taught that age group (slightly older) for several years in different states. Even a long time before gay marriage or many visible gay couples with children in society, little children played similarly. There have even been pretend “weddings” where two girls would get married and have babies together because boys didn’t want to play that game. I’ve seen two boys get married a few times as well. As far as I know, none of those children are gay either. They were simply being kids.

It’s sad to me that something so sweet and innocent as kids playing now has people concerned. The world we live in is just confusing.
 
Elf01 said:
Indeed. I hope the first conversation I have with my kids about homosexuality does not begin with them saying “My friend has two moms” or “My friend has two dads”.
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That would be very confusing to explain, since it is a biological impossibility for two women to both be the mother of a child, or for two men to both be the father of a child.
 
I can remember being seven or eight and my best friend and I wondering why we couldn’t just marry each other when we grew up because it would be a lot more fun than marrying some icky boy.

Then we grew up a little, hormones kicked in, we noticed the boys and the boys noticed us (and we also learned about the birds and the bees) and all thoughts of marrying each other went away.
 
Wouldn’t it be nice to bring our children up at a time when that was still seen as innocence? I feel like we grew up in a much better time to be a kid. Today’s world has forgotten what childhood is all about.
 
JimG said:
That would be very confusing to explain, since it is a biological impossibility for two women to both be the mother of a child, or for two men to both be the father of a child
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It is only as difficult as a parent chooses to make it. For a child who does not yet know where babies come from, one can simply say that there are all kinds of different families. Not all families look the same.

For kids who already know where babies come from, you can also include the biology of it and let your child know that couples (straight or gay) who aren’t able to have their own biological children often adopt.

These are the facts of life. Parents should not shy away from teaching their kids the facts.

Of course, if someone has a problem with a homosexual couple having a family, it is OK to let the kids know that, too. Always with the caveat that all humans are to be treated with respect and dignity, especially where families are concerned.
 
QwertyGirl said:
It is only as difficult as a parent chooses to make it.
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Yes. Often parents attempt to give way too much information to Littles ones and it only confuses them. Then it leads to more questions that are once again given more info that confuses the child more. Which leads to more questions…

Kids don’t need to be inundated with so much information. If a child asks something, sometimes it is ok to ask, “And what do you think?” It helps to determine what a child knows, what might need to be corrected, and also helps them think things through themselves. It’s also ok to tell a child that you can discuss subjects later, and it’s important for kids to sometimes hear, “That is none of your business. Those are grown up matters and someone your age has no concerns with this.”

Parents panic over too many things. Model proper behavior and kids will follow. As kids grow and mature, answer questions in age appropriate ways. If answers seem to be confusing, stop the conversation. The child isn’t ready and you can tell them they will need to discuss it more later.
 
That reminds me of this old story.

A boy comes home from school one day and asks his parents “where did I come from?”
The parents look at each other and realize the time has come for “the talk.” The dad takes the son aside and explains all about where babies come from, and all the usual “birds and bees” discussion.

At the end of it, the boy looks at his dad and says, “Cool. But where did I come from? Billy is from
Cinncinati.”

😜
 
I’ve found very young children playing make believe are not doing so while checking a biology textbook. They play like they are dogs or mermaids.

Halfish of families have two moms and two dads (two bio parents, two step parents). Open adoption has two moms, little kids don’t think about the biology.
 
I don’t think small children get it from their contacts. Most families have a mom and dad and even in divorce they still have one mom and one dad.

I would not expose small children to anything but what we live as a family. I know it is everywhere in pop culture but that is mainly the older teen years when you can’t escape it to have that talk.

I like the friendship of My Little Pony and it is a shame that they had to embrace the pop culture. Same with Arthur.
 
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