A thing I like about Sesame Street is that adults are positively and proactively involved in the lives even of kids they're not related to. This is cool and should be normal--being good to kids and helping them grow up should be a whole society's responsibility.
IRL, so many people would treat it as sus if a dude like Alan helped host a campout for a group of kids and adults; but actually it's lovely and maybe we should normalize adults being kind to and engaged with kids.
We should teach both kids and adults what constitute healthy interactions in this context and what to look out for; but the broad concept of a supportive relationship between a child and an unrelated adult should not in and of itself be taboo.
I suspect the nuclearizing of child rearing (possibly as a result or consequence of the Stranger Danger moral panic of the 80s) has created generations who don’t know what healthy vs unhealthy interactions actually look like so everything feels like it could be weird.
I think it's very convenient that generations of girls are raised to be afraid of stranger (which, fine better safe than sorry) when the real danger to data is men known to them mostly in positions of power
Yeah it’s a whole genre at this point. And don’t get me wrong, creeps exist for sure! But there a lot of ways the simple act of looking can be misunderstood.
I feel too, like it's rare now to even see the sort of older adult being active with younger adults as a positive thing, even though it's the core of good mentorship. I've been blessed as an artist to have a lot of positive experiences and direction come from my artist elders.
But yeah, like, people talk about the whole "it takes a village" sometimes without realizing that such child raising would look exactly like Sesame street.
Yeah. I feel like we've kind of thrown the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to discouraging potentially imbalanced not-romantic-or-sexual relationships. Mentorship is great! Intergenerational friendship is great!
Also means they have more people to reach out to for help if the abusive relationships are with people with cultural or legal authority over them. Kids can't save other kids from abusive parents, but family friends and other family members can.
You know, this is one reason I haven't worried as much about my AuDHD's kiddo's socializing because she doesn't care what anyone's age is, she just likes interesting people. And she has a wide array of adults in her life to relate to & be supported by along with kid interactions.
Because I've worked in and around convention scenes and now in and around university level academia, I keep gaining new friends who are younger than myself, and I like to think I enrich their lives, but hey, they also enrich mine!
If for no other reason than they keep me aware of myself as a younger human, it is so valuable. But even outside of that, more friends is good, actually, for everyone. Support networks are net positive up and down the ladder.
A cpl of young girls used to live in my neighborhood. They would ride by my house & ask me questions about my hair, my dog, etc. One started coming by alone at times & would hang out with my dog & chat at me. Home life wasn't great (not abusive, just not ideal) I gathered.
She mentioned that she really liked coming over because my place was quiet & "janky" like hers. (We were out in the yard, not in the house). She eventually moved away. I think about how she's doing a lot & am glad I chose to spend that time with her.
I have so many unrelated kids in my life at this point. I'm convinced it's the reason I never became a parent. Somehow, I must have known there would be lots of kids who would want or need another adult to support them.
When my son is at the park he often gravitates towards younger kids. He loves helping toddlers experience the slide. We've had reactions like this wrong and he should only interact with his own exact age group, and he DEFINITELY shouldn't talk to other kids' parents without his adult to facilitate.
It's frustrating as a parent, like how am I supposed to teach him about safe interactions with adults if he can't practice and learn in a safe environment? You always get nagged about socialisation with kids too but then if your kid is friendly and articulate with everyone you get, NOT LIKE THAT!!
As a big cis guy, I try to maintain a polite distance from kids at all times. If someone decides to accuse me of being a child molester, there is nothing I can do or say that is a defense, and god knows I look like the stereotype. It's not great.
I also like that a theme of the show is that the grownups in your neighborhood are generally good people who you can count on to help you, which is the opposite of almost everything else we've been told by mass media for 40 years.
honestly I feel like we should go back to the concept that children are the entire community's responsibility. obviously their parents are directly responsible, but everyone else is also responsible for making the environment children grow up in a good one.
It was my parent's choice to expose me to socially aware TV and I credit it for not turning out a complete mook. Schoolhouse Rock for civics, Sesame Street for basic education and socialization, Mr. Rogers for kindness, and the Electric Company for realizing that Spiderman+Reading Skills = awesome.
One of the worst things I’ve seen in the last few years (and there’s so many variables, including is this maybe only a local phenomenon, so I won’t speculate on causes), is a growing insulation of family units, with kids spending less time outside their family except at paid-for activities or online
I heard a kid get called out by the lifeguard by name at the pool today for doing flips into the deep end. I was like, that kid is in this community and it is keeping her safe
Honestly I'm terrible at interacting with Kids so I often don't and I go out of my way to avoid such interactions, and yet despite all that I still outright agree with every word of this.
