What kind of movies or music my kids would be exposed to growing up was
not something I deeply pondered on when thinking about parenting as a first time mom.
But then one day walking into our family room I saw my husband working on his laptop
while a Bollywood movie ran on the TV and my eldest son who was barely two at the time
watching it quite intently with a big smile on his face. I turned towards the screen and saw
a typical Bollywood song going on, plenty of color, upbeat music, women and men gyrating,
the camera zooming in on the women’s busts or butts every few seconds… to most Desi
people there is nothing strange or out of the ordinary about that. But seeing my little toddler
watching made me pointedly aware of the sexuality, vulgarity and complete objectification of
women that movie like most Bollywood movies was projecting and I turned the TV off.
It was in that moment that I realized how much it mattered to me what my son grew up
watching and listening and how much influence the entertainment he was exposed to might
affect his personality. To figure out what I did not want my son watch or listen to, I defined what
I did not want for him to be or do.
- I did not want him to be acclimatized or numb to violence and gore of any sort.
- I did not want him to ever think a gun was a toy and something to be taken lightly.
At that time, it also became quite apparent how much the entertainment industry exposes us
to all of these. Most TV shows were about cops or detectives either solving violent crimes or
shooting at the ‘bad guys’, the main hero often aggressive with a flair of bad boy vibe, whereas
almost all TV series had sexual content injected into them clearly to attract more viewers, MTV
music videos too were full of sexualized content and even so called kid shows on Disney either
had somewhat precocious kids already falling in love or juggling romantic relationships or
shouting at their parents, stomping off, banging doors and all that supposedly made them cool..
When it came to music, that too was often full of sexual innuendos, especially rap music which
was full of explicits too.
When it came to toys for boys, I decided not to buy my boys toy guns and the likes of it, nor
did I let them play video games that had violence and gore in them or where the objective
involved shooting or killing others. I was frowned upon by some friends and family members
for depriving my boys of the fun they could have with Nerf guns and the likes...but I believed
that weapons especially guns should not be introduced in a child’s life as a toy, it diminishes
the reality of what a gun is meant for and how dangerous an object it is.
So yes, that took a whole lot of entertainment off the table for my kids for the first their early
years, restricting their TV to mostly PBS shows, or shows like The Wiggles, Backyardigans,
or reality shows like Amazing Race, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire or Wheel of Fortune or
DVDs of Wallace and Gromit, Fireman Sam, Rescue Heroes, etc.. Movies were also mostly
limited to PG rating till they began middle school. Their toys involved board games, card
games, Leapfrog tablets, computer for Minecraft and educational games, etc.. I also spent a
lot of time playing word games, general knowledge and geography quizzes with my boys.
I don’t know if my way was the right way, but I do believe the rationale behind my decisions
was not completely baseless or unreasonable.
