Par for the Course

Since Baby was born, my wife and I have had a strict “no-TV” policy around the house. It’s not that we don’t enjoy TV, we do, but we really don’t want Baby staring in front of the TV for hours on end, at least until she’s older. We read somewhere that TV can impair a child’s social development because there’s no interaction with the TV, they just passively watch. Thankfully, Baby, whose now 15 months old has been a very social little girl, and loves to wave to people at random,* and sometimes plays “inai-inai bah” when she meets new people. This is the Japanese version of “peek-a-boo”, but Baby just puts one hand over her face, and yells “bah” with a big smile. For some reason, this is her way of greeting new people, but it’s super-cute so they don’t seem to mind. She also does this when I get home from work, which makes coming home all the better.

Getting back on track though…

The wife and I haven’t watched more than a few hours of TV in the last 15 months, so it’s weird when I do turn it on for a few minutes just to see what’s going on. Amazingly, surprisingly little has changed over the last year. The same shows I used to watch are there, the same basic news is on:

• Such-and-such leader is accused of rigging elections in his own country, protests and crackdowns follow.
• Such-and-such actress has a scandal involving (insert sex, drugs, money).
• Someone was murdered.
• Problems with the global economy.
• Armed conflicts, here, there, everywhere.

What really surprised me was yesterday at the checkstand at the local grocery store. I stood in line and saw a magazine reviewing the year 1968 (40 years ago), with the tag-line that read something like “War abroad, fallen leader…” and so on. That sounds eerily like things going on now.

So, when you think about it, all the problems we see today are kind of par-for-the-course. Each generation grows up in a troubled time, but only the primary actors involved change. If you step back and observe things long enough, you’ll see that things start to appear like a broken record after a while. This also applies to problems in one’s life. If you step back long enough, you’ll see that everyone else has the same problems with work, love, getting older and so on. The names and places are different, but the problems are the same.

Namuamidabu

* – Baby also really likes dogs (she used to terrified by them, until we convinced her to pet my grandmother’s dog). She always says “bye-bye” to them with a wave as we pass by.