I'll give you all a minute to picture the Lee you thought you knew, listening intently and nodding along to hours of Dr. Laura.
It may take a few minutes.
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The other day there was a call that really stood out: The Donut Man call.
A mom was concerned with the fear, paranoia, and obsession with death that her 6 year old son was displaying, and how she should handle these issues before the funeral he was going to attend. She added that it had gotten so bad, even silly little kids' stuff like The Donut Man set him off. Dr. Laura asked what The Donut Man was.
The mom just kept assuring her it was a "kid's thing", or a "children's song"or "kid's videos and stuff." She was kind of all over the place, but her point was clear: society and my peers have approved The Donut Man content for children and so my child watches it. This was the first point of the call that really struck me, this total relinquishing of parental screening to society's standards.
We deal with this all the time. I let our daughter watch a lot of stuff that most people would never let their daughter watch. However, I've overruled a lot of stuff most people think is OK because it's children's content, by society's standards.
Watch an episode of Spongebob Squarepants. Go ahead. Watch one. Have you ever taken acid? Mushrooms? Read about Ken Kesey's old trips? Maybe some Aldous Huxley? I'm just saying, an episode of Spongebob is like Hunter Thompson writing about a bath gone seriously wrong. I can barely handle it. It's psychologically fractious to say the least.
How about prime time TV on any network? How many dead people would you like your child to see in an evening? I know it's not for kids, but come on, what percentage of Americans huddle around Law and Order with the kids, as young as and even younger than our daughter? Statistics say most do.
And what about ads? They are literally scientifically engineered to suck you in and program your mind and behavior. That's messed up. We never watch live TV. Only DVR'd stuff, and we always skip the ads. That stuff is mental crack.
For this mom though, an independent and unique analysis of society's standard-approved materials never occurred to her. She wouldn't even engage Dr. Laura on an explanation at first, just repeating it was Kid Approved. Finally, she relented and explained:
The Donut Man is a religious thing where a donut-shaped man teaches us that we all have holes inside that can only be filled by religion and until we fill them we're all a little bit broken inside and in our spirit too.
Say WHAT!!!!????!!!!
So, you take a highly recognizable and graspable shape, two concentric circles, the donut, literally and figuratively the shape that most kids grasp first; you anthropomorphise it; you have it sing and dance into your child's consciousness at every level with the message that, "Hey kids, you have a hole like me!! Your insides are all messed up, right in your heart! It can only be fixed later, by somebody else! Good night now, sleep tight!"
And then you wonder why your kid can't sleep?! Woah. That's out there. If you told me that it was a kid's horror story, I'd be more inclined to believe it.
Regardless, this mom makes the decision to make The Donut Man an integral part of her six year old kid's life, and good on her. But, once the kid starts to freak out, it's amazing that even then it never occurred to her there may be a connection. I may let our girl watch Family Guy, but if she starts to talk about giving the dog a Gin and Tonic (Brian the Dog), or making hyper-sexualized and inappropriate comments about the neighbors (Quagmire), or perhaps gets surprised plotting to assassinate my wife (Stewie), at that point I'm going to reassess my entertainment choices. If I come home and Rose is making out with Kip, our dog, I'm not going to ignore Family Guy as a potential contributing factor.
Dr. Laura tried a different tract, since the woman wasn't listening anyway. Even if you sign off on the Donut Man for your kid, what message does that send to your kid when he runs into non-believers, or people from different religions? You've taught him that they are all fundamentally flawed, messed up, missing something. If your kid runs into a foreign classmate and starts discussing these things, and lacks the broader context necessary to understand the ideas of an exclusive religion, there are going to be problems.
The mom didn't consider that. It clearly hadn't occurred to her, and the concept rendered her speechless or a few seconds.
Now, I don't know this Donut Man. I only know what she presented to Dr. Laura.
Probably a pretty safe guess though: there aren't many different colors in his dozen; it's him, and eleven other plain glazed donuts.
Regardless, this mom makes the decision to make The Donut Man an integral part of her six year old kid's life, and good on her. But, once the kid starts to freak out, it's amazing that even then it never occurred to her there may be a connection. I may let our girl watch Family Guy, but if she starts to talk about giving the dog a Gin and Tonic (Brian the Dog), or making hyper-sexualized and inappropriate comments about the neighbors (Quagmire), or perhaps gets surprised plotting to assassinate my wife (Stewie), at that point I'm going to reassess my entertainment choices. If I come home and Rose is making out with Kip, our dog, I'm not going to ignore Family Guy as a potential contributing factor.
Dr. Laura tried a different tract, since the woman wasn't listening anyway. Even if you sign off on the Donut Man for your kid, what message does that send to your kid when he runs into non-believers, or people from different religions? You've taught him that they are all fundamentally flawed, messed up, missing something. If your kid runs into a foreign classmate and starts discussing these things, and lacks the broader context necessary to understand the ideas of an exclusive religion, there are going to be problems.
The mom didn't consider that. It clearly hadn't occurred to her, and the concept rendered her speechless or a few seconds.
Now, I don't know this Donut Man. I only know what she presented to Dr. Laura.
Probably a pretty safe guess though: there aren't many different colors in his dozen; it's him, and eleven other plain glazed donuts.