Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Maybe Santa's not such a good influence after all

My mom (thank you Mom!) sent the boys some Christmas DVDs - Rudolph, Frosty, Charlie Brown, the standards. Turner still has no interest in sitting and watching a screen (maybe if it was bigger than the 7-inch DVD player), which is not a bad thing. Guthrie has been watching them, though, and even figured out how to put them in the computer and start it up all by himself.

He just walked up to me, holding a little stick in his mouth, and telling me he was smoking a pipe. Now he has hte stuffed Santa smoking the pipe. I asked where he learned that (don't think anyone has ever smoked an actual pipe around him) and he said on his movie Santa smokes a pipe. I hadn't noticed that part, or thought anything of it.

So, what do I do? I remember my older cousin and I used to pretend our crayons were cigarettes and "smoke" them. And candy cigarettes and cigars used to be popular everywhere.

I suppose I just let him keep it up, and the novelty will wear off soon enough. If I don't let him, or make a big deal, he'll just want to do it even more, huh?

See, I knew watching TV taught you bad habits.

5 comments:

alimum said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
alimum said...

I had too many speling errors in the first comment.

It isn't just tv...the old Curious George smokes a pipe too (not the new one books or tv show, however).

I think he is at an age when you can begin to tell him about all the bad things smoking does (turns your lungs black, makes it hard to breathe and therefore run, causes wrinkles and cancer). You can explain that Santa is immortal (so such things aren't really on his radar) and that those videos are old, from a time before people knew how bad smoking was. Even if he pretends to smoke and "thinks it is cool" he will remember--even though I tried smoking as a teenager, I was pretty uninterested because I KNEW how bad it was. I have a friend, a friend who I thought was way smarter than I as she got into every college to which she applied (including Harvard and Yale), who claims she didn't know smoking was dangerous when she picked it up at 15. UM, yeah, read the frickin' package. But her mom smokes, so I suspect she wasn't getting the message reinforced at home.

alimum said...

see, I can't even spell correctly in the correction

Judy said...

You know, I think we have one where Curious George smokes (it's in the first story, isn't it). And doesn't Babar smoke too? Hmm, and Eric pointed out to me the Pink Panther smokes, and we let him watch that sometimes.

Oh, probably all of the old books and shows feature someone smoking somewhere. Or something else objectionable. (In "Bedtime for Frances" her father threatens her with a spanking if she doesn't go to bed.)

Eric smokes. Guthrie sees him sometimes. He wants to quit, and has committed himself to doing so, but his mother will be here in 2 days, so not yet. Probably after the holidays. (Always a reason to put it off, isn't there?)

I used to be a real smoker, and still have one or two somtimes. We actually met smoking cigarettes. (Gotta sugar-coat that story before the kids ask.)

We've talked about the evils of smoking. Don't know that it will get through. I knew all about the evils, and it didn't stop me, so who knows.

And of course I'm not blaming TV. I hope that came off as joking - I wrote it in a hurry, so maybe it didn't.

Never considered the "Santa is immortal, so he can smoke and be as overweight as he wants to" angle before. I'll have to use that one when necessary. :)

alimum said...

if it makes you feel better, it is easier forgirls and women to become addicted to smoking (and everything else) than boys.

http://alcoholism.about.com/od/whealth/a/blcasa060211.htm

my dad was a smoker and I remember how hard it was for him to quit. I never really liked smoking (though I liked having something to do with my hands, back in the day before I started knitting) so it seemed like I would have to train myself to enjoy something which, once I actually liked doing it, I would struggle to quit. So maybe you should let them see Eric's struggles to quit (that definitely takes the glamour out of it, I think).