My kids love watching TV in my bed before heading off to their own room for the night. It’s just something they dig. So I use it as a bribe at bedtime. I admit it, I bribe them: “go up, put on your pajamas and brush your teeth. Then you can watch one show in Mommy and Daddy’s room before bed.” It works like a charm.
Anyway, last week it was The Woody Woodpecker Show on Hulu. I gotta admit Chilly Willy is pretty cute. I don’t know if he is roll on the floor, clutching your stomach funny but you can’t convince my oldest of that. Pretty sure he ruptured something howling in delight.
Anyway, tonight it was Veggie Tales on Netflix. I must be totally out of the loop and living under a rock with those guys in the Geico ad because I didn’t really realize Veggie Tales is religious. I don’t understand what talking asparagus has to do with the man or woman upstairs, but that’s not too surprising. There is not much about religion I do understand. And why don’t they have arms? My 4 year old noticed this, too, because out of the blue he announced that the cucumber has invisible arms and that’s how he can drive. See–right there he learned about faith:
He can’t see the arms but he knows the cucumber needs the arms to drive the car, so therefore he believes the cucumber has arms. And he tried to convince all of us about the invisible arms as well. Spreading the word. Already the show was working its magic.
Anyway, the story was about a little fib (depicted by a “cute” creature if you go for blue spotty things) growing into a giant ugly lie and taking over. It was actually a nice little analogy and came along at a perfect time in our house because we are currently working with our oldest on some consequences for a little fib he told. He hid his brother’s blanket and it was “missing” for about a week causing sadness at bedtime for his brother and frustration for his poor parents who tore the house apart looking for the rag, I mean blanket, his brother missed so much. Anyway, the show allowed us to point some things out and talk to the boys about lies and telling the truth.
But then at the end, there is a scripture quote and mentions of God and the Bible. Then it gets tricky. I was raised Catholic and while I no longer consider myself Catholic, I do want my kids to have some sort of religion in their lives. I like the ritual of families attending church together. I like the notion of the kids learning right from wrong and do unto others, etc. I want them to know there is more to the world than themselves–that there is something bigger.
The problem is that I don’t know what that bigger power is. We’ve thought about trying out a Friends meeting to see if the Quakers are where it’s at for us but there don’t seem to be a ton of meetings here in Colorado. We went to a Unitarian church one Sunday and it felt pretty good but we haven’t been back since and that was two years ago.
I want Christmas to be about more than getting a new Luke Skywalker light saber. I have no idea how to explain Easter and why we dye eggs and get baskets of treats. Plus, I want the boys to understand tolerance and charity and peace.
And I don’t necessarily want them to learn about it from a talking tomato.
But I’m not sure how or where to start. I guess Junior Asparagus did teach them a good lesson about telling the truth. But I don’t think I can turn my kids’ spiritual well-being over to the television or a bunch of armless singing vegetables.
I better figure this out and get this family some religion. It’s really my duty as a mother to teach them about religion and make them go to church on Sunday so they have something to rebel against and blame all their adult guilt on later.*
*I’m the product of a very strict, very religious Catholic upbringing. I spent years in Catholic school, going to church on Sunday and confession regularly. It really does explain so much.
