My 7 year old Nathan is obsessed with Pokemon. It's not my first choice of things for him to become obsessed with, but all his friends love Pokemon, ergo, he loves Pokemon.
Here is a picture of him with the "Pokemon train car" that we made for his 1st grade class.
So, he's been pushing me to get a Pokemon movie from Netflix for a while. Until recently, I was pretty firm about saying no. Why? I think Pokemon are stupid. Pretty harmless, but just really stupid!
But Nate is growing up. As much as I would like him to watch Little Einsteins, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Sesame Street that's not realistic. I mean, what 18 year old still watches Curious George every night? There has to be a transition at some point.
So I decided to let Nate has a bit of autonomy within bounds. I told him we would find out about the Pokemon movie by reading about it at www.commonsensemedia.org (website for parents that describes exactly what content a movie has in it) and then we could decide whether we still wanted to get it. So, we looked at the reviews, and they seemed okay. No sex, no profanity, low levels of violence. He made the decision to get the movie and we decided we would watch it together.
Well, it came, and guess what: though it was a really stupid movie (it took me about 45 minutes to figure out the plot!), in fairness it actually wasn't too bad, in terms of content. The violence is mostly these giant bird-like things who breathe different elements (ice, fire, electricty) out. And the main character, Ash, actually shows great sacrifice and perserverance. Plus Pikachu is kind of cute! :) But what was really fun, was that Nathan kept saying, "That's Reshiram. He's a legendary. He's worth 990 points". Or whatever. He really knows his Pokemon!! It was cute, and I loved that I got to share in his excitement over this movie, even though it wasn't my first choice.
I realized that I've been okay when Nathan (or any of my kids) is obsessed with media that I like. I yearn for the Cars days when he was 2 and the Thomas the Tank Engine Days when he was 3 and 4. That kid had almost every single Car and engine on the book!
Age 2 with Cars. Yep, he has Cars pajamas on too.
Age 3 with Thomas the Tank Engine...just realized he is also wearing Thomas pajaams in this picture! Wow, we are total victims of marketing!
But I've got to reazlie that as much as I want him to stay in this safe little media bubble, that is not realistic and he needs room to grow, even in terms of the media. Though, let's just hope he doesn't develop a Spongebob obsession next! :)
Several of the boys in my husband's family are into Pokemon, and I was the exact same way when I found this out. Really? Really? But it's so weird? I have had to come to terms with this as well! Anyways... I really appreciated the pictures of your son with his pj's and his toys! So cute! Made me chuckle.
ReplyDeleteYou should bring your son into class so we can talk Pokemon together... I actually happen to be an expert in all things Pokemon (shocking I know!) When I was a smaller person, I recorded every episode of the series on those old VHSs, completed the game boy game twice, bought Pokemon Encyclopedias and generally.... was quite obsessed. Oh, and I can still sing the theme song from memory... yep, I was a cool person back then, and I still turned out to be a pretty okay person(mostly) who hates spongebob. There is yet hope :)
ReplyDeleteWe went through ever phase in my family we did Pokemon, Sponge Bob (which also included pajamas), and then... Yu-Gi-Oh. With three brothers I thought the first two were bad, but oh man the last one is the worst. All phases, but I at least thought the characters in Pokemon were the most creative of the three. Good Luck, (at least on the positive side you have a very cute little boy!)
ReplyDeleteI was that little kid who had every Pokemon memorized. I collected the cards, I played the Gameboy games, I had the pajamas, and I actually set an alarm on my wristwatch for when an episode of Pokemon would be on TV. It's totally silly, but Pokemon defines my childhood. My cousins and I would pretend we were Pokemon (I was always Pikachu) and those were some of the happiest days of my life. As embarrassing as it is to admit this, I actually sought out an episode of Pokemon a few months ago--just to see if I still felt the same happiness from watching it. Confession: For a moment, I actually did. :)
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