A couple things came to mind while I was listening. The first was the number of big names on the cast... I was astounded. Alan Alda, Harry Belafonte, Mel Brooks, and that's just the first three names on the album.... Very weird (maybe that's why I like Mel Brooks so much...). Anyway, one of the things on my mind was what sort of songs are best for children. I intend to have kids one day, and my general strategy in raising them is going to be similar to how I was raised. I want my kids to be treated as adults, not sheltered from life until they leave home. Withing certain limits, of course. The most important things are to enjoy life and be prepared for the future, so that you can enjoy it to.
Anyway, I remember a few years ago when the Barney outrage was at its peak, and everyone (well, everyone I talked to) was saying that they'd never let their kids watch Barney, and I started wondering what makes a children's show 'bad'. Now, admittedly, the major problem with children's shows is that they're being used as a replacement for parents, instead of a supplement, but that aside, what could be wrong with them? I ended up reading a really detailed review of Barney and why it was inappropriate, and came up with Barney generally turning all kids into duplicates of each other through things like "What do you like doing?" "I like doing ____" "Let's all do ____!" "Yay, Barney, we all love doing ____!" Hmm... I seem to have lost my copy of that review. Aw well, that's beside the point. Anyway, another point was that the kids on the show acted as if they were about three years old in the complexity of their thoughts.
But is this all just how we see it now that we're older? Were Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers much better? So I watched an episode of Barney, and then an episode of Sesame Street, and, well, I know I only had a sample of just one, and so I couldn't really say if one was worse than the other. But yes, the kids on Barney definitely did not have complicated thoughts, and took all their cues as to what to do from Barney. It wasn't like that on Sesame Street.
Hm. I didn't mean for this to turn into a Barney-bashing essay. All I wanted to say was that I wonder what criteria do you use to see if something is appropriate for kids. I guess it all depends on the kid, and, as I said above, I shouldn't be sheltering them. But I should also encourage kids shows that help the process of learning and growing and dealing with life. And so that was on my mind when relistening to "Free To Be... You and Me."
Interesting side point: One of the songs on the album, "Don't Dress Your Cat In An Apron" has the identical rhythm and pattern as one of the poems I wrote years later (True Love). Coincidence? Probably.
Also, what about the song "Parents are People"? One of the recurring lines in it is "mommies can be almost anything they wanna be. . . Well, they can't be grandfathers, or daddies" and then later "daddies can be almost anything they wanna be. . . Well, they can't be grandmas, or mommies." Now, isn't this album supposed to be about letting anyone be anything they want to be? I know someone who has switched genders, it's not that uncommon. So is this giving a negative message? Or am I just reading to much into it? And the song "When We Grow Up" which has a female voice singing "When we grow up will I be a lady, will you be an engineer? Will I have to wear things like perfume and gloves? I can still pull the whistle while you steer." But the rest of the song is about "Well I don't care if I'm pretty at all; and I don't care if you never get tall. I like what I look like and you're nice small; We don't have to change at all." Am I reading to much into things? Is this still treating people differently?
And I guess that's the crux of the matter. Treating people differently. But people are different. There are boys and girls and tall people and short people and fat people and thin people. And in some way you have to look at that. I mean, there was a big uproar when people noticed that the fire department was made of mostly men (99.99%). Well, the percentage of women that are physically able to meet the requirements of the fire department is incredibly small. So of course we won't have an exact 50-50 ratio. And I wouldn't want one.
So what do you do about sex differences? There are so many differences... Biochemistry, environmental, everything. But the same is true between any two people, so what does that mean? And yes, you have to teach kids that they can do anything they want to do, but they also have to be comfortable with who they are, and the uniqueness of being male or female. Or should we do that? I mean, what if they've been raised that they should be happy and proud to be female, and then later in life decide, after much soul-searching, that they really are male? That is a possibility. Should kids be given a blank slate, or a possibly mismatching one?
Arg. I don't know. I guess it just can't be perfect. Always a chance to make mistakes. And I'll just stick with the general ideals of openness, acceptance, and freedom, and deal with problems as they come. I just think that the differences between being male and female are important and should be cherished, but where's the balance point? Maybe an androgynous society is better, but I don't think so. I like the differences.
Mmm.. I'm so glad I found this tape. I think I'm going to go type out the lyrics to the songs. I did a brief search on the web, and the only places I found it mentioned were in library collections and a brief footnote that it had been targeted by the Radical Right book-banners in the early eighties. And it reminds me of happy childhood. Of freedom and kids and change.
As a footnote, if I was ever forced to change my name, the only thing I would feel comfortable changing it to would be "Free".
Jan 26, 1997