Heidi and the dictators

While I was watching cartoons with my youngest son, I realized, without wanting to be the usual bigot, that today's products on average are quite disgusting. The producers and creators don't hold it against me, but they are often very idiotic and devoid of any form of intelligence and/or content. Finding myself lobotomized in front of cartoons, a question reached me: but what will happen in my son's brain after prolonged exposure to the aforementioned? Will he become like any of these unlikely characters? Or like me, who watched Ken Shiro and Tiger Man, will it survive the harmful influences of modern society?

Then I stare into space for a moment longer and I say to myself: who knows what all the small and large dictators of this world must have watched as children? Did their mothers show them Heidi after the snack with bread and garlic like mine did? Haven't they also been moved by seeing the exploits of Peter and the adorable orphan? Is there something we can show our children to help them become, not just a Nobel Prize winner in medicine, but at least not a dictator? Many questions crowd my mind in this time of war, but the most difficult one is not exactly a question. It is really difficult to raise a child in a world where it is also difficult for a father to raise!


Andrea Go
NP April 2024