January 3, 2012
LESSON NUMBER EIGHT: Kids need screens (not just the sun kind).
Madonna with David and Mercy in Malawi.
Can we have a cup of tea and a quiet chat about Madonna?
Now I do not want to diss Madonna. I spent too much time in my formative years trying to pick up girls in nightclubs while doing silly dances to her music to complain about anything she does.
Except for one thing.
Madonna has banned TV in her house altogether.
Evidently, when they heard about the TV ban, her two adopted kids, Mercy and David, had to be physically restrained from jumping on the first flight back to war-torn, poverty-stricken Malawi.
As British writer Helen Pidd remarked, it's unclear exactly what Madonna's children do while every other kid is enjoying The Simpsons, "but the smart money is on something joyless and painful like cross-country running".
Now, Madonna probably has several hundred full-time nannies to do most of the hard work of parenting.
On the other hand, you and I stumble through our days from dawn to around 9pm trying to juggle the hundred small jobs that go into being a parent.
That being the case, hands up anyone who hasn't got down on their hands and knees and thanked the gods for an afternoon at the cinema or an evening in front of the TV for giving you some badly needed peace and quiet?
And come on! These sluggish slow-paced school holidays drag on for six full weeks of long languid summer days – each one full of lethargy and the drowsy drone of cicadas and cricket.
So I say it's time to stop feeling guilty about movies and TV. I say it's time to take a stand against Madonna!
It's time to take a stand against all those psychologists in their lab coats who wag their stern fingers at us and tell us how we are rotting out kids’ minds with computer games and TV and how we must be Really Terrible Parents (yes, it's so serious they have to use capital letters) who are using screen entertainment as a way of avoiding parental responsibility.
In particular, it's time to take a stand against organisations like Young Media Australia.
http://id.she.yahoo.com/new/http://thehoopla.com.au/madonna-21st-century-dad//
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