Nigerian actress, Dakore Akande
has opened up on the challenges of raising her children and how her 3
years old daughter unconsciously got into a porn sight thinking it was a
Barbie cartoon.
In a recent post titled Digital Media, My Babies & I on the actress' blog,
Dakore shared her experience in raising two girls and having to
sacrifice watching music videos on popular music channels for kid
friendly programmes.
Read her post here
On
today’s post I want to share the challenge I face as a parent on a
daily basis as it concerns digital media/new technology/television.
Growing
up we didn’t all have access to it or only had ‘restricted’ access. In
my case when school started we weren’t allowed to watch TV so we could
concentrate. Yeah, my folks were hard-core like that. We didn’t have
much choice in terms of what to watch, it was either “Voltron”, “Sesame
Street” or “She-Ra” on television or music videos on Betamax or VHS
cassette. Wow, my age don dey show o!
Nowadays my
daughters are spoilt for choice as to what to watch on TV with so many
different cartoon channels and YouTube on my phone or iPad. I have
nothing against mankind’s advancement in technology considering it has
made life a lot easier in many ways and saved lives especially in
medicine, etc., but as a new parent it’s something we all need to be
mindful of.
My 1st born is already a whiz on my
phone and IPad and I usually let her watch her favourite shows like
“Sofia the 1st”, “Frozen”, “Peppa-Pig”, etc and I did not worry about it
too much because most times I have to help her type what she wants to
watch so that way I can monitor what she’s doing. Right? Well, sort of.
It turns out that there are so many suggestions that pop up based on
previous history that can lure kids to get into some adult stuff with
parodies of these shows such as “Barbie life in the Dream House”- let me
just say it was borderline porn! I was shocked but of course I had to
play it cool and just changed it to something more wholesome! Phew!
From
then on I always ensure to extra double check what she’s up to. It is
not as if she’s deliberately searching for naughty stuff because she’s
only 3 years old, but if it’s dangled in front of her like a lollipop,
then I can’t blame her for her curiosity but it will not be curiosity
killing my little kitty if I can help it! That was my first shocker so I
brought my husband’s attention together we became more vigilant.
Another
issue is with music videos and shows. As we all know, we live in a
highly sexualized world where sex sells just about everything and I find
myself worrying about the impact that has on the children we are
raising today. In my household we are huge lovers of music of all
genres, be it our very own Naija pop, hip-hop, or R&B. And one of my
favourite things to do is to dance with my daughters. In the past, I
would leave the TV on and watch TraceTV or SoundCity and let it keep
showing, now I have to be extra vigilant with all the nudity and shaking
of bum-bums. This is coupled with the fact that I have two baby girls
and I can’t particularly say I’m happy with the way certain women allow
themselves to be portrayed. However that is an entirely different topic
for another day.
But back to the matter at hand, I
find I have to reduce watching those shows or leave it to when they’re
asleep or play the audio version only, or just switch to another channel
entirely. When the video that comes up is too risqué and that always
causes troubles with my feisty 3 year old.
We
really have to contend with a lot these days and I want to encourage us
as Mums to be more vigilant with our kids so they don’t grow up too fast
and start dealing with things they don’t understand.
Till next time.
Blessings,
Dakore.
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