I probably let the kids watch too much television. My excuse is that it’s pretty much impossible to get ready for work in the morning and prepare dinner in the evenings without TV to distract the kids. We started out just having Sesame Street or the preschool channel Noggin on during mornings–both have the advantage of being commercial-free. Because PBS changes to the Jim Lehrer Newshour at 6pm and Noggin becomes “the N” (a scary channel for teenagers), we didn’t have many TV options in the evening. I started playing Miffy and Richard Scarry DVDs which the kids liked for a while but then got bored with them.
At daycare, they have a small library where you can borrow books and videotapes, and one day the kids saw a Barney tape. I don’t know how they learned about Barney, but they begged me for the tape, and I checked it out. Well, that was the beginning of the end for any other television program. We’ve played this Barney videotape, Movin’ and Groovin’, at least fifty times. They want to watch it twice in the morning and twice in the evening. Bernard and I know all the songs by memory, despite our hatred of them.
I do understand the appeal for the kids though. All of the other programs are either cartoons or puppets. There are very few children’s shows with child actors, and kids love watching kids, (even though the kids on Barney are horrible actors.) Recently, my cousin Jean, gave us some of her kids’ old videotapes, and I tried replacing Movin’ and Groovin’ with some other Barney tape. (I have to return Movin’ and Groovin’ to the daycare eventually). Well, I had some mixed success. Eleanor liked the new Barney tape, Alphabet Zoo, but Miranda not so much. At the beginning of these videotapes, they show a Barney logo with a white (Alphabet Zoo) or black (Movin’ and Groovin’) background. Now the kids get into a daily argument involving which Barney videotape they want to see:
ELEANOR: I want white Barney!
MIRANDA: No! Black Barney!
ELEANOR: No! White Barney!
etc.