Wiggles–how do I hate thee?

The BBQ Pit
41

Preach it. That is reality, so true.

I grew up on Kimba the White lion and The New Zoo review with some Banana Splits thrown in.

My children had Ninja Turtles (the real ones) and Barnie. They both had the sheet sets and fleece blankets to enforce the love.

Embrace this time. It only comes once. Before you know it they will want to watch more intersting tv shows and request more expensive decore.

I love you and you love me…

It all seems like a blur now and I wish I would have gotten up more often and danced with my three year old.

42

My one year old watches baby animal shows. The ‘Growing Up’ series on Animal Planet is great. If not, we turn on the Salsa and Merengue channel and she dances. She loved the Wiggles at our friend’s house, but I figure the trick is to just get them to like something else. We’ll see what happens when she becomes more aware that she has options.

I think it’s sort of silly myself. Not like Sesame Street which teaches them more things. I saw the inside of a Crayon factory on Sesame Street.

I lost a job once because it was working for the creator of Barney. I could not resist asking her how she felt about the fact that her creation was so reviled. I felt bad about it, because she was very nice and even had cooked me dinner on the job. I just had to know, and well, how many times are you going to meet the creator of Barney?

43

And those Wiggles work their asses off on that show. My friend and I decided to see if we could dance and sing every number in a half-hour episode- we were frigging exhausted by the end of it! :wink:

My kids loved kid’s shows AND grown-up music. My boys are 8 and 6, and for at least the last three years, their favorite CDs in my car have been The Pogues, Bob Marley, Steel Pulse, Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, The Clash, The Waterboys and Squeeze! They also watched a ton of Discovery and Animal Planet, and can discuss things that an outsider would think were clearly beyond the capacity of children their ages. So I never begrudged them a bit of fun nonsense.

Anthony Wiggle is a stoner, right? On the later episodes, he is clearly stoned out of his mind. :wink:

44

I have a 6 year-old girl and I wonder the same thing. If we don’t like it, or don’t think it’s appropriate, it’s just not allowed. Simple as that. There’s enough quality entertainment for kids nowadays that we don’t have to live with junk. Of coures, a lot of this is purely subjective: we had no problem with Barney but can’t stand Blues Clues.

We’ve actually had arguments about this with family members, the latest being our traditional Christmas trip to the movies. My sister and her kids wanted to see Alvin and the Chipmunks, whereupon my wife said “Hell no - that movie is crap and we don’t let Sophie watch crap. I’d rather take her to see Sweeny Todd or No Country for Old Men.” I completely agreed: there’s enough good/tolerable stuff out there so that parents don’t have to subject their kids to a idiotic movie that’s filled with fart/crap jokes.

45

He seems too hyper for it to be weed. Ecstasy?

Anyway, I’ve probably never heard a better description than Diogenes has provided; until you’re a parent, you don’t have a clue, so shut up. Every kid is different. While there are some universal truisms, there’s also a hundred little idiosyncracies with every kid.

Ours is two and a half and to be honest she’s really not that bad; the “Terrible twos” aren’t as terrible as they’re made out to be. But she can get fussy, and if you think it’s easy to diagnose, you don’t have kids. You can SAY she’s just going toeat whatever you eat, but she just might not. You can think you have a way of winning the argument over whether or not she’s going to get ready for bed, but there may be no answer she’ll accept:

“We’re putting on your pyjamas now, Madeline.”
“No! I don’t like that!”
“Would you like to just be naked then?”
“No! I want my jammies!”
“Okay, let’s put on your pyjamas.”
“I don’t like that!”
“Do you want a bottle?”
“I don’t like that!”
“Alright, you’re going to bed.”
“I have a bottle please?”
“Okay, here is your bottle.”
“I don’t like that!”

She simply doesn’t grasp logic, and while she might sound articulate for a kid that age, she can’t REALLY fully verbalize what she wants. A toddler doesn’t yet have the skills to cope with problems as simple as being tired; being tired frustrates her, so she’s angry, but doesn’t know to calm down to go to sleep, and can’t really tell us what she wants. So you pretty much just shepherd them through the day as best you can. When she has a temper tantrum, we don’t give in, but we do try to calm or distract her. Sometimes that means letting her watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or Little Einsteins. (Since she’s at daycare playing with other kids most of the day, to be honest, she really doesn’t have a lot of time to watch TV.) She gets over it, and we can start playing again.

I mean, most of the day she’s a little angel and you can take her anywhere and do anything. She’s a really polite, friendly, good little girl, so when she gets pissed off, it’s just because she’s having trouble dealing with the big world she doesn’t fully understand, and her frustration level boils over. It’s nothing worth ME getting angry about; she’s not being bad or trying to piss anyone off, she’s just learning how to get along in the world. The key is to get her calmed down and her heart rate down, and then she’s fine and you can do other stuff. If that means sometimes letting her have something a little different to eat, or watching the odd kid’s show, there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as you’re consistent and insist that the basic rules and procedures are followed.

46

Heh eheh eheheheheh … My son LOVED the Wiggles, and got to see them live. The first time he was 4 and so overwrought he acted like a 16 year old at a Timerlake concert. The second time he was 6 and stood at the back playing air guitar to himself singing KISS songs - so I figured he was over them. As a cruel and unusual punishment - the kidnapper in the new Australian movie “Cactus” locks his hostage in the car with bound hands and gaffer tape over his mouth and plays ‘Hot Potato’ by the Wiggles at an ear bleeding volume and sets it to ‘repeat’ whilst he goes for a walk in the middle of the outback. Very cool. There are people out there that deserve this.

47

Nevermind.

48

I like most children shows. They are just so upbeat and happy it is a bit hard to not like them. The only one I hate is Dora, and that is justified. We have one Dora tape a work where the main song is “Super babies, super babies, super babies, super babies.” Every time a child asks for Dora, or another worker puts it on I die a little. I actually only rewind it half way, so as to cut down the time it’s on. The kids don’t even notice.

Backyardigans is by far my favorite show, though. The music is great and does not make you want to puncture your own eardrums. Every episode has a different music theme and genre and it is amazing. Backyardigans is always fun. Here is a small smapling of the songs.

49

One thing that makes me feel better about TV is that every single thing that my 2.5-year old willingly does is inane, repetitive, and painful to my adult brain after a few minutes. I honestly don’t think Dora or the Wiggles are any more brain-rotting than walking in the neighborhood obsessing over every single fire hydrant, rock, and stick that we come across; it’s certainly no more intolerable to me. When we turn the TV off, he finds some other equally inane activity to do, and either way, he’s just doing what his brain needs him to do. I personally think that the warnings about TV for kids are totally unfounded, resulting in yet another thing to freak parents out for no good reason.

I do think there is merit in the idea of teaching your kid to be more flexible and tolerant of adult-dictated activities – but only because it would make parenting easier, not because it would be any good for the kid. And it probably wouldn’t make parenting easier anyhow; it would simply shift it from suffering through a kid-focused existence to fighting a continuous battle of wills.

For the record, I actually really love being a parent (though I don’t think I could be a SAHD – I need some adult time each day). The secret for me is to take a kind of zen attitute in seeing the world as he sees it and sharing the joy he gets from life. That said, I already have a plan in place for the ritual destruction of all Dora-related material in the house the moment that becomes possible.

50

Mental note: Cervaise would make a good babysitter.

51

If you think that’s surreal, try Boobah (warning: sound and weirdness).

The ‘terrible twos’ hit shortly before the third birthday, my hand to god. Every toddler I have ever known wasn’t ‘terrible’ until two or three months before turning three.

52

Yep, that Boobah is definetely not going on my TV.
And my son Jacob, whom turned two last August, is quite terrible right now, thank you. That is, when he isn’t busy charming you as a means of setting you up to forgive the next tantrum…

53

“Get on your tummy! Do it! Don’t question it, just do it! Do it, assholes!”

“Can you break a fifty? Do you know why my father left me?”

I have seen this probably 200 times, and it never fails to crack me up.

As far as the Wiggles, we love them in this house. The Wiggles, Laurie Berkner, and the Imagination Movers are the few kid performers we listen to in the car. Laurie Berkner is like Joni Mitchell for kids, and the little tot adores the Wiggles and “Doh-thee” . We started watching it because it was on at 7 AM when he and I have some downtime before getting ready to leave for daycare and work.

Even my husband finds them unobjectionable. However, we’d rather poke hot needles into our eyes than watch the Doodlebops (the only time I ever want to watch these freaks is if I have done a hit of acid. I figure that will make it all better) or the Teletubbies or Barney. Or Dora or Diego. We figure we’re in for it when he’s older, we’re not going to argue with him on a show that we can actually tolerate.

Funny thing is, on the weekends when we get up in the mornings, we leave on Johnny and the Sprites after the Wiggles is over - I actually wanted to watch that because I adored John Tartaglia in Avenue Q, and it cracks me up that he’s doing a children’s show :smiley: . So now, my son actually adores ‘Yonny! Yonny!’, as he calls it.

However, no matter what you do sometimes, they will find the one character or show that you detest and become obsessed with them. We don’t watch Elmo at home. We’ve had Sesame Street on a couple of times, but we’re not fans of the newer Sesame Street and especially not Elmo. In the past week, my son has become OBSESSED with Elmo - to the point where he has been asking for ‘Elmo’ when he gets home. The only thing I can figure is that they have toy Elmos at daycare (because they don’t watch any television or videos) and he’s been playing with those. We finally just gave up after he asked for Elmo a thousand times and found the stuffed Elmo someone had given him before he was born. It’s now his prized possession and he won’t go to bed without him. :rolleyes:

But you know what? It makes him happy. We really try to avoid buying much character stuff for him (I refuse to buy character clothes, nor do we buy regular toys with characters on them), so I figure a small obsession with Elmo isn’t a big deal - I got him an Elmo sticker book for using the potty all weekend. My husband and I may hate the little fucker, but the kiddo loves him, which is all that really matters to us.

54

I love you/
You love me/
We’re a dysfunctional family/
Then a shot rang out/
And Barney hit the floor/
No more purple dinosaur…

55

I hate you.

56

You know what’s sad, I know there are a couple of different versions of this song, and I know them all.

Actually I don’t mind the Wiggles, and for some reason I kind of like the Captain. It all started when the wife bought a Wiggles book for the little one when she was 6-8 months that plays music. When she learned to press the buttons that was it. Now she has a couple of Wiggles shirts, PJs, DVDs, books. At least for the most part it’s ok music. The doodlebops or whatever the fuck they are can stay off my TV.

57

I kinda like the Doodlebops…
Please don’t hit me.

But I am SO SICK of the Big Comfy Couch.
I never want to see any stupid clowns or stupid couches ever again.

58

Do these things freak anyone else out?

Granted, it was like 6:15 AM one morning when we turned on the TV (I was switching to Sirius Kids Stuff on DishNetwork for music), and maybe I was half asleep, but I have never been scared by a children’s show before. These things scared the hell out of me. I had to make sure I hadn’t accidentally ingested some bad 'shrooms or something because I really thought I was on a bad trip.

And we do like the Wiggles, but the toddler now loves “Hot Potato” because he knows the hand motions, and loves to finish up the song with “Tato…'tato…'tato…!”. It was cute for a week, and now I’m very tired of that song. So I accidentally on-purpose misplaced the CD in the car.

59

I just hope, if you have kids, that it doesn’t turn out like my family in my teenage years. I was a good kid by most standards. I did fairly well in school and didn’t skip classes. I didn’t drink or do drugs. I didn’t have any curfew or sneaking-out issues. I didn’t date much or have sex, so I didn’t get pregnant. Yet my mom and I didn’t get along well. Why? Because she had trouble dealing with the fact that I had my own ideas about stuff like how to dress, how to do my hair, and what sort of books to read, ideas that didn’t match up with hers. We eventually started getting along better, once she realized that I might not be all she wanted me to be, but I could have been a lot worse.

60

My son is obsessed with The Wiggles. I don’t mind them that much. In fact, their version of Split Endz’ “Six Months in a Leaky Boat” is actually on my Zune playlist. That’s all I’m saying about that. :smiley: