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We have a SpongeBob Squarepants ban in our house. It's less about the "fast-paced" nature of the show, which reportedly makes our children dumb, and more about the fact that it annoys the non-square-pants off of me. And something about the language. We also ban slow-paced shows because of the annoyance factor. See also: Max & Ruby.
Annoying banned shows aside, people sure are talking about this new study claiming that fast-paced cartoons -- like the Bob-Bob, as my oldest son used to call him -- are bad for our kids' developing minds. It was all over the morning news circuit this morning and not surprisingly, all over the blogs this afternoon. There are many opinions -- some complete dismissal of the pseudo-science and others rejoicing. But one by Whimzie at Snoodlings made me laugh. There's nothing better than science on your side when explaining to your kids why they cannot do something they want to do.
Whimzie starts out her post with a bit of gloating:
Mom friends of mine, I want you to take just a moment today to celebrate a small victory with me. We spend many minutes of our day making unpopular decisions our kids don’t understand. We are sometimes perceived as the cosmic killjoys in our family’s universe because we insist on such trivialities as clean underwear, brushed teeth, and limits on time with devices that require batteries or have to be plugged into the wall. But once in a long while the method to our madness is revealed in such a way, we have to ask the whole world to pause with us for just a moment to acknowledge our rightness. This morning was one of those moments for me.
Almost every morning I turn on Good Morning America while the kids are getting ready for school. Until Phineas and Ferb includes a news crawl at the bottom of the screen, my morning time with George, Robin, Sam, Josh, and Lara will probably be my only chance at knowing what is happening in the un-animated world. I get the weather forecast so I know whether or not to send the kids to school with a jacket, I hear the latest news stories, and I might even find a recipe that will help me solve my daily dilemma of what to make for supper. But today I received something unexpected: sweet vindication.
Today Josh Elliott reported what I’ve been telling my kids for years: Watching SpongeBob makes you dumber.
Photo Credit: npobre.
