We reside in a suburban subdivision. Not the classy, wealthy type of community but
the middle class type where almost all members of households need to go out to
earn their daily bread. It is common to
see both mother and father travel to work in the morning to come home at night
tired and fatigued by work and traffic.
It is, therefore, common, too, for families to rely on grandmothers, grandfathers
and any other available member of the family to tend to the upbringing of the
young ones. Because times are hard and
maybe not all couples have relatives to depend on for child care, children seem
to be too few and too far in between the houses.
In our block alone, Little Guy is the only
male child. One neighbor across our
domicile has a couple of little girls that even after a few years, I have never
personally sighted. The couple next door
has a teenage son while a few kids live two streets down. Despite the government’s view that our
population needs to be curbed, I have one question constantly in mind. Where are all the children? I seldom see children running and playing in
the streets even when it’s summertime. This
is something quite unlike my own and my kids’ upbringing!
A few years back, our electric posts had notices
of a missing child who was snatched away in our village. This
could be one reason that parents are quite paranoid about letting their
children run around the streets no matter how private and safe we may think our
place to be. And, this must be prevalent
in most residential areas.
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| Sketch made by TitaBoom |
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| Drawing by Little Guy |
How does a child get from being a fat cutie to an undecipherable warrior freak?
As a consequence, Little Guy has no real
playmate to speak of. He roams around in
his imagination with plenty of virtual playmates. His days are spent with Ben 10, Ironman, the
Ninja Turtles, the Backyardigans, Dora and Boots, Diego the animal rescuer, Tom
and Jerry, and even the idiotic Spongebob!
Because we hope to monitor Little Guy’s
development, there is always at least one member of the family that need to sit
through all the mindless stories churned out by all the cartoon networks. There was a time when Ben 10 was banned because
in his arrogance, Ben was often insulting to his family. Whoa!
It’s something we don’t want Little Guy to emulate. Forever not viewable is Max and Ruby because
Max is also a downright foolish and rude kid!
Our own favorites are Finn and Jake of Adventure Time. Both characters are sweet and always just aim
to be good in their adventures as they travel from place to place. It doesn’t detract from the show too that the
characters are quirky and have special features such as one princess who speaks
Japanese. Note that this princess is the
girlfriend of Jake the dog! There is
another princess whose “talkies” is dubbed by a male voice! The latter character has had all of us
imitating it from time to time when we are feeling cheeky or playful. It’s no surprise that even Little Guy’s
godmother downloads the episodes for her own viewing when she has the
time.
Fun as all this may sound, it just is not
normal. One day, Wacky needs to be
Raphael to his Michaelangelo while he gets to choose who will be Leonardo and
April. The next day, he wants me to be
Gwen while he is Ben 10. From day to
day, the characters change. Often, he
would emerge from his room with the costume of the character of the day;
Spiderman, Green Lantern, Ninja Turtle, Ben 10 with his omnitrix, Buzz
Lightyear and some other friends that he has met on television. He would appear with all kinds of props such
as sword and long guns (made from folded newspapers!) The other members of the family would then
need to play supporting cast to his character!
When a program is shown on television, he would immediately quip that he
is the hero whoever that hero may be at the moment. I am just so afraid Little Guy is turning
into a schizophrenic with multiple personalities! Just like the typical busy mom, Anaconda (my
daughter/his mom) takes this in stride and has informed me that this is normal
for kids these days. Apparently, she has
discussed this behavior with a lot of her officemates who have the same
experience or who have neighbors who have the same experience. Oh okay!
If it’s okay with the mother, it’s fine with me!
So Little Guy continues his adventures and
we try to accommodate his imagination as much as possible. Of course, it doesn’t stop us from having
some fun at his expense such as instructing him to wear his briefs externally
when in a hero costume – ‘cause that’s the way superheroes wear them! Take a look at Superman and Batman!
To fill his need for real social exchange,
Little Guy takes lessons in martial arts where he gets to interact with boys
aged 9 to 13. Hahahahahah - again,
ABNORMAL because Little Guy just turned 7!
So we occasionally bring him to Kidz Republic where he gets to play
rough and tumble with other little kids.
He comes out exhilarated and tells us he has made a few friends.
We ask him, “What’s their names?”
He answers, “I don’t know.”
HELP!
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