If marriage is a major redefinition of self in sacrifice for a greater whole, and it is, then raising children is an exponentially extreme version of that sacrifice.

It is natural, unless one is sick or immature, to want one’s life to be a springboard for one’s children, to wish for the achievements of the parent to be the starting point for the child.

This riveting and wholly unoriginal thought was inspired by a 30-second commercial for “SpongeBob SquarePants.”

We limit our almost-3-year-old’s exposure to television, but he still watches more than I would have predicted when I was making pre-birth plans to be with him at the library 12 hours each day on our way to the museum for a symphony or opera concert. Two working parents + a 9-month-old baby boy = “Evan, watch a few minutes of ‘Wonder Pets’ while I change your brother’s diaper,” or “Evan, go ahead and see what Diego and Dora are doing while I pry the D battery out of your brother’s mouth” or “Evan, check out a little bit of ‘Blue’s Clues’ while I talk your brother down from the roof.”

During one of these brief TV-sitter moments, a commercial for “SpongeBob SquarePants” came on.

“I don’t watch ‘SpongeBob,’ ” Evan said, as the square yellow fellow on the screen beat himself over the head with an oar.

“You’re not quite ready for SpongeBob,” I said, juggling the mute button on the remote with a soiled diaper I have submitted to the folks at the Guinness Book of World Records as “foulest waste eliminated from a 9-month-old baby.”

Then, images flashed through my mind of myself and my brother at a very young age, camped in front of the Saturday morning TV with bowls of cereal and a lineup that usually centered around 90 minutes of Bugs Bunny cartoons, encored by an hour or so of Tom and Jerry.

Some of the funniest cartoons I remember are, upon reflection, horrifically violent and make SpongeBob with an oar look as impotent as a Lucas County Republican voter. Remember Elmer Fudd jamming a shotgun in Daffy Duck’s face and blowing away everything except a few feathers?

How about Wile E. Coyote plotting with the patience of Hannibal Lecter, a series of Road Runner traps that included dynamite, arrows, massive amounts of suspended weights and steel traps with shark-like teeth? Tom and Jerry could take a piano, an oven or a pillow mint and fashion incredibly lethal devices that would make Jigsaw jealous.

And yet, somehow, millions of us watched these cartoons and grew up without dropping an anvil on anyone’s head or painting fake curves in the road that lead to the edge of steep cliffs.

Am I protecting my boys or oversheltering them? It’s too soon to expose them to Bugs and his mayhem, but I have a few DVD sets tucked away I was looking forward to sharing with them later.

I’ve already been surprised by Evan’s emerging tastes. Despite early exposure to the preschool Disney shows and the Sesame Street gang, he has firmly chosen the Nickelodeon “Noggin” lineup, with the previously mentioned Dora, Diego, Blue and Wonder Pets. I never would have guessed such educational and development-based shows would replace the random antics of Mickey, Pooh and Tigger. With a few years of Evan and baby Sean growing up learning about geography, animals, the Spanish language and the arts, what are they going to think when I sit them down with some popcorn and show them seven-minute slices of a Mexican mouse named Speedy pouring nitroglycerine down Sylvester the cat’s gullet and a rifle-bearing hunter named Elmer Fudd (not to mention Carty Finkbeiner template and pistol-packer Yosemite Sam) on murderous missions to slay a wiseacre rabbit?

I know a lot of it is about age and context, experience and Christian values. I just don’t know what the balance is or when that balance should be sought.

There are a lot of scary things waiting on the pop culture horizon. Bambi’s mom and Dumbo’s mom and Nemo’s mom don’t fare too well. Charlotte the Spider bites the dust alone. There are frightening dragons and evil witches and flying monkeys and insane gollums and dark lords, and that’s just in local media and politics.

What happens when the kids have access to things beyond Disney villains? There’s Leatherface and Jason and films so disturbing and bloody they push the limits of art into exploitation and beyond.

And the music they’ll hear! How fast have we gone from John and Paul’s “I want to hold your hand” to Trent Reznor’s “I want to **** you like an animal” to Eminem’s “**** my ****, lick my ****** ****** from under my ****”?

My wife and I hope to raise our boys with enough sense and self-respect to make smart choices, but I don’t want them to be ignorant of the evil and corruption that surrounds, trips and ensnares even the kindest and most level-headed people. Is it hypocritical to laugh at the basest, least defensible joke on “Family Guy,” then gasp in horror when my toddler son sees a quick second of SpongeBob smacking his pal Patrick?

Maybe we’ll just sell the TVs on eBay and pick up a few good books with no violence or questionable content. You know: Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, the Juniper Tree …

Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press. Contact him at mmiller@toledofreepress.com.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 1:00 am and is filed under Lighting The Fuse, Opinion.
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