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children

Pay No Attention to the Singing Crab

Canberra play centreKids’ movies lie all the time, and I’m not happy about it. You think you can just pop them into the DVD player and you get ninety minutes of respite from the busy job of child-minding, but no! You have to stay vigilant the entire time, just so you can check that all the wholesome ‘messages’ are actually as wholesome as they appear.

That little green crab can sing as catchy a tune as he likes; I still don’t want him singing about how the economy is actually better when people give up their dreams and pursue a minimum wage job. I want my kids to reach for the stars, not be satisfied in the gutter, thanks very much.

Golly, everything has to be political nowadays, doesn’t it? If it’s ‘educational’, that raises the red flags that they’re teaching my kids something with an agenda. Give it ten years, and you’ll be looking around Canberra for an indoor play centre where all the climbing equipment is plastered with statistics about the effectiveness of socialism. All the balls in the ball pit will be printed with fun facts about progressive values and such. And the children won’t UNDERSTAND any of it, of course. I asked Lena what she thought of what the green crab was singing about, and she said that she thought it was a pretty tune. Still, you can never tell what’s going into their young minds. That’s why I like play centres and party venues and the like. At least, the ones we have now. All neutral imagery: blue elephants and bright, non-clashing colours and pirates with swords that have clearly never been sharpened and are thus clearly for effect. You know…neutral stuff. Things that will cause my children to make their own decisions in life. And I’ve never seen them use copyrighted material at any kids party venue near Canberra, so there’s no danger of corporate brainwashing. Not yet, anyway.

-A.M.