Although Liam still doesn’t watch very much TV (with the exception of a few minutes each day while I’m waking up and getting ready and he’s in our room with us) it brings me great joy that my little boy can now identify Mister Rogers on sight. I’ve written before about using the PBS website clips while cutting Liam’s fingernails and toenails but it never occurred to me that Mister Rogers might be available online until I went looking for DVDs and found that not only are there only a very few available out there in the world but that PBS has just cut Mister Rogers re-runs to one per week, which is absurd. Of all the complete crap aimed at kids on television it’s more than a little shame that Mister Rogers isn’t aired regularly anymore (and that I can’t get my hands on all the episodes–for which I’d be willing to pay a ridiculous sum of money). The fact that we’ve tried to replace a captivating, kind, caring, gentle man who taught us how to be better people with giant purple dinosaurs and action cartoons with no real value is sad. While I know that my kid will inevitably end up watching some crap TV in his youth I’d just like to do my best to keep shows like Mister Rogers and Reading Rainbow on our playlist. I’ll take a tour of a stamp factory or LeVar Burton reading a classic over flashy, soulless animation any day of the week.
That’s my girl!