Well, this is interesting. Tonight for some reason H.o.p. kept wanting to see an old post I had done on the threat of funding being pulled from PBS and NPR. I’d done a little pic to go with it representing Oscar and Elmo as homeless characters. That post was over a year ago and I don’t know why he was thinking about it, but he was. Then after his examining the post and its pic several times I heard him up front talking with his dad about how PBS had to be saved once and for all and how he wanted to help support it and make people interested in signing a petition to keep it going. Now, he didn’t know about the MoveOn petition. He just knows about petitions and thought this would be a good idea.
I was working on something and didn’t pay much attention when I heard lots of activity with him setting up some scene and taking pics (I thought he was attempting another top animation) then he comes running in and says he’s done a comic and gives me the pics to upload. I uploaded them and then we sat together in my chair and worked both on the pics together in Photoshop, me following his instructions on what to do with the images, while at the same time I was taking the opportunity to give him more Photoshop tips on how to do things.
I thought this was just some Elmo comic he’d come up with, which I thought was kind of odd for him as he doesn’t use Sesame Street characters for telling stories. After we’d uploaded the comic pages to Flickr I helped him make the post of the comic for his blog, and to my surprise he wrote:
Well, I made this incredible comic. It’s called Elmo’s Big Trip! Guess what? It’s about Elmo leaving home and going on a big trip. I did this comic because President Bush keeps trying to get rid of shows like Sesame Street and I made this comic to support it. You won’t believe what happens in this comic! It’s really funny. Bush is the hot rod that’s red and trying to crash into Elmo and get rid of Sesame Street. But Elmo makes it home safe.
If you want to see the little comic he put together, it’s here.
Now, y’know what’s kind of not so hot about this? First, I think this is grand that my beloved, stubborn, recalcitrant, bull-headed, argumentative H.o.p.–who many days drives me crazy 23 hours out of 24 with my trying to raise him to be a thinking human being who will be able to use all that bull-headed determination and argumentativeness to his benefit, with whom I struggle to try to let him know there’s something in the world other than Legos, Legos, monsters, Legos, animation, Legos, PBS, computer games, Legos, Legos, dragons and dinosaurs–well, I think it’s great that he thought this up on his own and came up with this comic which he sees as supporting PBS. But what’s not so hot is he’s got relatives who wouldn’t, in the past, visit my blog to read about what he was up to or look at his art because they don’t like my views on things and don’t want to read what I write, which is one of the reasons I set H.o.p. up with his own blog (plus I’d intended on stopping mine). Now, that’s cool with me that they don’t want to read my blog–I have no problem at all with this. But at the time I really didn’t feel like setting up and maintaining two blogs. Plus I wasn’t entirely aware just how much my blog was considered to be a big thorn, and didn’t know that even the posts about H.o.p. weren’t being visited because they were in the vicinity of my blog, I frankly thought it was simple lack of interest in what he was doing. Then I did become aware that it was because I was posting his activities on my blog which was the reason they weren’t being read about, and I thought, setting up his own blog last month, this is great now that he is old enough to do it all in his own voice. Not only did he need his own blog, but those relatives would now feel free to follow what he was up to. “Wonderful!” I thought. “Now they can enjoy H.o.p. risk free in his own words!”
But if H.o.p. starts spouting off about politics and Bush on his blog?
I should have seen it coming.
Anyway, I was helping H.o.p. put up his post earlier and when I learned what the comic was about and his intention, I thought, uhm, uh-oh. How’s this going to sit? Is he going to lose those cherished readers who felt free to visit his blog because it was dissociated from mine? And, frankly, I felt kind of bad about it. Indeed, he’d had more that he wanted to say on the subject of Bush in the post but I suggested that he keep it on topic, on PBS, and even suggested rewording some of his thoughts because I was thinking, “Oh, dear, he doesn’t have any idea how this might effect his readership.” And I felt guilty suggesting that he keep it on topic in that post, because I! me! I! was surreptitiously restricting his voice, though what I was worrying about was some people he loves would turn cool now to his blog, and might freeze it out altogether if he was more vocal. And I hated the idea of that because he’s been so excited about it.
Whatever. I’m through my first hurdle and having been through it and thought about it next time I won’t interfere with what he has to say. I don’t think. I don’t know. I just hate the idea of any prospective chill falling on him.
No, I won’t interfere again.
I don’t think.
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