| The Amateur (5) |
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How shall I put it - I look like an idiot, and yet I'm right. For years I've been ranting and raving about the useless debate as to whether violence on television does or does not affect the way children behave. I'm convinced that the time will come when we'll be wondering how on earth all of us silent majority members could have sat idly by for so long. In so far as it's true that children pick up more good and bad things from their peers than they do from their parents, that does away with the necessity of proving that they learn from others, i.e. including from those who appear on television. Moreover there are significantly more parents who would like someone, anyone, to tell them what to do about it than there are stakeholders who disagree. I have to admit, however, that the topic, serious as it is, came as a godsend to draw the attention away from what is about to follow. I have to admit with some reluctance that it struck me this morning that, full of didactic supremacy as we are, we invariably assume that good advice is a strictly one-way street, an exclusively top-down affair if you like - and that's not even mentioning poor advice. You see, I am surprised at not having caught this streak of inherent arrogance in myself that obfuscates how impressionable we all are, i.e. including as fathers under the influence of our children. And this is exactly what I can now prove, as I have the evidence in print. Fortunately I also find it quite endearing, but what it boils down to is that observing my daughter's clumsy scrawls is impacting on my own spelling proficiency. See for yourself: it clearly says "COLECTIE" (colection) instead of "collectie" (collection) on the front cover of the PAN brochure. |