Friday night conversations #10 What was your childhood show?

On the way home from school today, baby girl asked me a question.

“Mama, have you heard of Pippi Longstocking?”

“Yes!”

“Our teacher read us that book today.”

It’s a real full circle moment when your child starts to get introduced to what you used to watch…. sooo long ago. I remember when she learnt who Mr Squiggle was last year… that dude is an Australian childhood institution!

I got her to tell Hubbie over dinner, what she found out about today.

“Who?” he asked.

“Pippi Longstocking!” I said.

“I don’t know him,” he replied.

“It’s a girl!” I cried. “Are you kidding me? You don’t know Pippi Longstocking?”

“Never heard of her.”

“How? This is when we were growing up! That’s like someone from our generation saying they don’t know He-Man.”

“But I know He-Man.”

“Yeah, but imagine they didn’t.”

We grew up with 5 channels, not an abundance of options and on demand services like what we have nowadays. And even though back then it was probably considered more of a girl show, I am still baffled as to how, with such limited kids content, with only certain times of the day where kids programs would air, that he NEVER came across Pippi Longstocking, with the curvy plaits going out to the sides in a smile.

I even brought up the theme song… oh it’s engraved in my head! Even after all these years!

We all wanted to be her!

Anyway, all this talk made me think… what was your childhood show? What show do you immediately think of, when you think of your childhood?

What show is synonymous with you growing up?

This could be anything. You could have grown up in the 70s, 80s, 90s, even the 2000s… for me it was the 80s and early 90s, and I struggle so hard to pick just one show.

So I will be cheeky and pick three.

Mine are:

Duck Tales. “Duck Tales, woo ooh!” I loved that theme song. Huey, Dewey and Louie were fun to follow, and their great-uncle Scrooge McDuck, well, who could understood him?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They were huge, EVERYONE loved them! My favourite was Donatello, because he was purple, and I liked that colour (typical 7 year-old rationale).

And finally… who can forget Scooby Doo! Oh gee. The amount of kids that scared themselves silly watching that show, huddled over, on, or behind the couch, terrified of the bad guys out to get the Scooby gang… that show was seriously freaky stuff! And then we all went to school like nothing at all happened, only to do it all over again the next morning.

What show do you think of when you remember your childhood?

Friday night conversations #1 Red Sonja

With so much time on our hands now, and being physically removed from most of civilisation, I thought it beneficial that we should still connect… we should still talk.

Insert, Friday night conversations.

Let’s have a chat about a different, totally random thing every Friday night. (Totally open to suggestions for each Friday too).

Tonight’s theme… what movie scarred you as a child?”

How the hell did I come up with this topic you might ask? Well on cold and windy nights like tonight, we end up indulging in a movie on telly more often than not… and Hubbie just happens to be thoroughly engaged with Rambo II, right now as we speak…

Every time I say something, he’s like “hold on…”

And I am just holding on to my every thought, like ALL NIGHT.

Seeing Rambo trawl through jungles, get electrocuted, and then shoot automatics in revenge, reminds me of all those 80s movies we watched growing up, along with other chiselled six-pack ab legends like Arnie, and then suddenly…

Red Sonja flashed before me in a horribly bittersweet way.

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Because sure, it was from my childhood and I have great memories growing up… but my Dad had taped it on VHS, off the TV! Yes, back in those days. I was about baby girl’s age, 6 or so, and I saw these horrific things unfold, like a woman being thrown down a well and squashed to death (or that’s how it appeared to me anyway) and though I was petrified I still continued to watch it, over and over and over again.

Why was I allowed to even watch it anyway??? (80s babies!)

I wouldn’t even know what the story is about. All I remember is that Arnold Schwarzenegger was in it, and I didn’t even realise ’til this moment that Brigitte Nielsen was in the starring role.

That is my story. So tell me, what childhood movie scarred you in a really horrible, funny or weird way???

 

Unannounced Cake in a Nanny State

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Photo by Lorene Farrugia on Unsplash

Something unbelievable happened today when we picked up baby girl from kinder. And it was so unexpectedly liberating, innocent and reminiscent of when I grew up as a child, that when I realised what it was, only then did I truly recognise that in this day and age, this was a thing to be noticed.

Baby girl, along with all of the kids in the class, was eating… chocolate cake.

All of them. They were on the floor, cross-legged, some of them asking for spoons so as to not get their fingers dirty (ahem my daughter), smears of brown sponge smeared across their faces, as happy as Larry’s and Lassie’s that it was someone’s birthday.

But more profoundly shocking of the fact they were eating chocolate cake at the end of their kinder session was that…

… wait for it…

The teachers had not informed the parents about it.

(Dum da dum dum!)

And I couldn’t have been happier about it.

I grew up in a time where my Mum was able to bake a whole damn cake and bring it into class, and as the birthday girl I was a God-damn legend. You could hand out lollies, share snacks, and no one batted an eyelid.

I ain’t talking allergies here. No I totally get it if you have some. I had an allergy myself growing up, so I am not putting down the fact that there are some kids that can’t eat certain foods.

I am talking about the fact that we live in a precious nanny state, where every little thing has to be recorded, and every little thing needs asking, permission, and a written personalised autographed hand slip.

For God’s sake.

I have TWO prime examples I came across just in the last year, and I’m only one year young into this whole ‘schooling’ thing too. I came to pick baby girl up one day, and the teacher informed me that she had hurt herself – the poor thing had poled herself climbing down on an A-frame. Ouch. She had been checked out and all appeared fine, but because of this I had to fill out an incident report.

An incident report. I scraped my knee in grade 3 and was sure I could see my bone, there was NO INCIDENT report then.

A second example. A letter taped to the door at kinder last year informed parents that Christmas songs may feature in some of the end of year activities with the children… however if anyone opposed, they would not be included.

Hold up…. WHAT?!?!

Do you see what these two examples represent? A nanny state that is afraid of offending others or getting things so wrong so as to make themselves vulnerable to lawsuit…

Seriously, is this the world we are living in???

When did we start needing permission to eat dessert? To have fun? To sing a freaking Christmas carol???

NO, don’t get me started on Christmas songs. DO NOT touch Christmas festivities. If they don’t let my daughter sing Jingle Bells, I am gonna get violent on their arses.

I can only imagine what lies in store for me for the many decades worth of school years ahead of us, but my hope is that this general wide-spread stupidity dumbs itself down enough so that people stop tip-toeing around each other, and start living with freedom and happiness and trust, so that if anyone DOES want chocolate cake…

They should damn well get it.

Sure, the cake did kinda ruin baby girl’s lunchtime meal… but I was so happy I hadn’t been asked, I didn’t even care.

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Photo by Becca Tarter on Unsplash