Baby Shark has betrayed you.

[bladespark]

Just an observation that passes through my brain now and then, when parents on the internet start talking.

Everybody seems to have all organic, screen-time-free, breastfed, and generally ideally raised children. They will all shake their heads and say things about the awfulness of parents who "let youtube babysit their children".

Then somebody brings up Baby Shark, and the groans echo. They're so sick of it, OMG its stuck in their head, their toddler won't stop singing it, it's the *worst*.

It's from Youtube. (Or certain tablet/phone apps.) You know, those things that all you perfect parents never let your children touch, ever. How do so many of you know what it is? How are so many of you afflicted with it all day, every day?

Sure, those of you who have older kids may know it as a meme, as something the kids learned at camp, or as something the kids sing to be obnoxious, but that's not most of the comments you're making. Mostly your comments imply that the Pink Fong version is being actually played repeatedly in your actual house and your pre-school age kids know it.

So suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure, none of you would ever, ever, ever in a million years do something so awful as to let your kids watch youtube. Sure.

(P.S. The culture that shames parents so hard for not being perfect that every single one of them lies through their teeth about how they're actually raising their kids is complete and utter bullshit that I get pretty mad about sometimes. But the Baby Shark observation always makes me chuckle just a bit all the same.)

Comments

[nia_kantorka]

Baby shark isn't a thing here, but... time for a confession:

Our little (9 yo) watches 'tablet' since the age of 3. She's got adhd and shouldn't do it too long each day (she's doing sports and lots of running around with friends), but 'tablet time' is - to this day - the best bargaining ship we've got.

She still can't play long on her own (it's got way better than it was and best works drawing), but a weekend can be long. You can only play so many card or board games or draw so many animals or bake so many cakes and buns (the strange hobby of her and MrKantorka) before it gets old.

Sadly, she's not an avid reader. So she has to be 'persuaded' to read 10 mins a day. How do we do this? She can watch 10 more minutes tab afterwards.

It's not ideal, but it's what it is. Most of the time we can avoid adhd-related breakdowns and tantrums that way. As long as it's not for hours and hours we're totally fine with it.

[bladespark]

See, I do it too, but I think it's sad that we all feel the need to frame this kind of thing as a "confession" or defensively say we're doing the best we can when it's not ideal. It's really unfortunate to me that parents need to feel defensive about any kind of loving parenting.

[zeeth_kyrah]

Personal experience bears it out, if you want an avidly reading child, read to your child -- and have lots of different things around to read (books are usually better than tablets for that, because you don't have to worry about the tablet also being a video or game source). That said, I understand that a person's primary learning style can interfere with some things; I have trouble learning from video instruction because I can't take it apart like a diagram and it only flows one way, even rewinding doesn't really show me the whole thing at once. And I have a nephew who has ADHD but loves to read... usually in short increments with lots of breaks for other activity.

[nia_kantorka]

Thank you for your input, but I guess there's not much more to do:
I've been reading around my child since before she was born. I did read a childrens book to my growing belly which was good training to get used to reading out loud again. We both have been reading to her for forever. She loves it. But reading herself: She can't concentrate much - or the book has to be really special (it has happened, but only twice afaik). She loves stories, but the act of reading not so much. Astonishingly, she isn't bad at reading out loud.

And yes, our whole household is full of books, including childrens books (because I really like to read those every once in a while - we're currently reading the Percy Jackson books together). She also sees us reading a lot. That's why I'm so sad. I remember from my childhood how I feel in love with books around the time I could really read them myself, all those worlds conjured in my head, but that didn't happen for her. It's an useful chore for her, but not a passion.

[zeeth_kyrah]

Sounds like you're doing things right! I guess she's a bit like my mother and games. I love games of almost any kind, particularly console platformers and tabletop RPGs, but my mom doesn't really see the point if there's not an extra reason for it like socializing with friends or doing some brain training.

[nia_kantorka]

Yes, her reasoning seems similar to your mum's. At least they both don't dislike the things we love. :)

[annofowlshire]

Honestly, I’ve found that most parents are doing the “bad” things and if you’re the first to admit it there’s a palpable relief that you’re not perfect either and others begin sharing about doing the “bad” things as well. (Or accidents your child had, etc.) I’m a pretty hippy organic granola sort person (and thus, became a hippy organic granola sort of parent), but I’m the first to share my many parenting “sins” I’ve committed at a mums group because I think it’s better that we all clear the air and stop feeling so ashamed into silence over things that are pretty silly.

The first time I heard Baby Shark was on Spotify or Amazon Music or similar running a children’s music station. We have since seen the video. And a lot of other Pink Fong videos.

[bladespark]

The goober's Pink Fong/Baby Shark stage seems to have passed, at least for now. She's on a space kick right now, so we watch a lot of Kurzgesagt, which is actually aimed at adults or at least older teens, it just has a really colorful and simple animation style which she enjoys. It's nice to watch some content that's more in my own lane now and again. There's nothing like watching a three year old get excited about neutron stars and black holes, though! :3

[frith]

I toy with the idea of learning this song so I can threaten to sing it if people run out of questions during 'meet the creature' presentations. If I don't learn the song, it would be an empty threat.

[greghousesgf]

I don't have kids so I only heard that song once. My god it's annoying.

[silveradept]

Judgmental parents and parents trying to squeeze as much "learning" as possible out of childhood make my job infinitely harder, because now I have to sabotage their impossible plans for their child and convince them that children do like reading books for their content, not because they're at a particular level of reading.

Yes, I know the guidelines around screen time, but I'm not going to tell a caregiver they should put the phone away when it's clearly the thing that's occupying the toddler's attention while the caregiver has to do work of their own.