A girl from Geetle’s kindergarten class stopped by with her mom for a visit yesterday. While the kids wandered around the house, BAGM and I talked with the friend’s mom.
During the conversation, I learned that she let’s her kid watch Hannah Montana but not SpongeBob Square Pants.
We let our kids watch SpongeBob. I don’t mind goofy cartoons showing goofy cartoon things. After all, I grew up with Tom and Jerry and the Looney Tunes and it only barely corrupted me. That kind of cartoon hijinks is so detached from reality that I’m not worried about it corrupting my kids.
Hannah Montana is a show with real kids. The main characters are in high school. I’ve seen the show a couple times and it is pretty harmless. Still, I always turn it off when it comes on because I don’t really need my 6 year old kids learning what it is like to be high schoolers and dealing with those kinds of issues. Plus, in my opinion, the mix of the real actors and the inability to make them cartoony enough that kids can’t easily recognize that it is make believe is a more dangerous mix than SpongeBobish type of shows.
That’s my two cents anyway.
Not everybody agrees with me. Last weekend, I finally got around to seeing Watchmen. It is a rated R movie that fully earned its R rating. There was male nudity, female nudity, sex, extreme and graphic violence, adult concepts, etc, etc. A great movie in my opinion but one clearly made for adults.
There were about 10 groups of people in the theater and 4 of them had between 1 and 3 kids ranging between 4 and 12 sitting around watching the movie with their dad.
I bet they get to watch both Hannah Montana and SpongeBob at home.
So which would you show would you let your kids watch at a younger age? Hannah Montana or SpongeBob Square Pants?
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Our 4-year old is a HUGE Hannah Montana fan. However, she does not even know that there is a HM television show. The only exposure she’s had is to the concert/movie which is all music and dancing. I watched a few minutes of one episode of the show to test it out and decided it was too mature for her. We’ve actually only watched SpongeBob once in our house. I guess she didn’t care for him. I wish I could say the same about Yo Gabba Gabba…
Pookie just got into Yo Gabba Gabba. It immediately became the greatest thing in the universe.
That show actually hurts my head but I love watching him run around playing with some Yo Gabba Gabba stuffed animals that my dad bought him. He really wants a radio to put them in but has resorted (completely on his own) of using this big castle that folds closed as his Yo Gabba Gabba radio and carries them around in it now.
My just turned 10-yr old twin sons always want to watch “Jake and Josh,” and “iCarly.” Sometimes “Suite Life of Zack and Cody” … so unfortunately my younger kids get exposed to those bubble gum dramas.
But “Sponge Bob” appeals to their primal instincts and is the unifier they all rally around unanimously.
None of the above. We ditched the TV more than two years ago and hasn’t looked back! My 5 yo do not know what is Hannah Montana and got acquainted with Sponge Bob during our brief vacation where we stayed in a hotel and tuned in to carton network.
I grew up watching Looney Tunes, The Jetsons, The Flinstones and Tom and Jerry too but now, I don’t feel comfortable with my child watching Tom and Jerry. I think there’s a lot of violence in it.
I’ll answer this one about my hypothetical children.
SpongeBob would be fine, it’s just kind of stupid humor. I watched all sorts of things like that as a kid, and (in my own opinion) I turned out ok.
Hannah Montana…not so much. Not because there is anything actually “wrong” with it, I just think it portrays an unrealistic view of life that younger kids can’t easily see is just pretend. I think it would be fine for a kid who was a bit older….
But I have seen kids of ALL ages (from like 2-12) in EXTREMELY inappropriate (well, good for adults, just not for kids) movies. (What are these people thinking?!)