It’s Saturday, and my 2yr old daughter Ashley has been losing her mind all day. She’s a bit perturbed because in honor of International Children’s Day of Play, Nickelodeon has cut their programming. On all of their network channels there’s a message telling kids to go outside and play, or urging parents to take their kids out to play. Of course she’s 2yrs old and doesn’t understand. Shoot, we’re still trying to get her to understand that there’s nothing we can do when the rain knocks out our satellite service.If only she was able to read what’s on the screen maybe she could understand. But of course you know Black 2yr olds aren’t able to read (nor will they ever be) according to those “My Baby Can Read” product commercials. Yeah, all the reading babies are White; no need for me to waste money on that product. Oh well, I guess I’ll take her to park once it looks like it isn’t gonna rain – something that it’s been doing all week. Yeah, forget the reading thing. Just as long as I can get her started early athletically, it should get her a leg up on the competition for an athletic scholarship; yeah, that’s the ticket.
Until this thing on Nickelodeon I haven’t given thought to the fact that kids don’t play outside anymore - my two oldest are 15 and 15 respectively. Which I guess would make this International Children’s Day of Play thing a good idea. I guess we can blame the problem of obesity and the inactivity of our kids to the rise in the number of pedophiles instead of the video game industry. I mean why take a chance on being abducted by some sicko at the park when you can be at home playing video games, right? I mean, who else better to entertain and raise our kids than television stations and video game makers, right?
When I was a kid, we didn’t need someone on TV to tell us to go outside and play. Usually it was the other way around. Usually it was an adult Nazi killjoy who saw to it that our childhood fun idea of playtime reduced to the arduous task of reading a book or some other form of torture. Oh well, maybe they’ll have an International Children’s Day of Reading. Of course you know since reading is “White Folks Shit”, us Black parents will have to figure something else out for ours. Oh well, Nickelodeon will be back on the air soon and all will be well in my house. Yep, Dora The Explorer and her sidekick red Timberland boots wearing monkey friend shall be my savior. My baby may never be able to read, but she'll be able to speak Spanish fluently.
