A MOTHERS THOUGHTS on an HIV MUPPET

Home Sweet Home ^ | Saturday, July 13, 2002 | Katherine Jenerette

[kjenerette]

I wish that this was a easy subject to discuss, but it's not. The way I view this there are really three issues here that need to be separated to make any sense at all:

#1) How to deal with people who we love who need our love and who are dying - this does not necessarily mean HIV only.

#2) How to deal with a deadly disease that is spreading throughout the world and is communicable from person to person by contact or contact with body fluids.

#3) How to best, as parents raise our children to be good, honest, compassionate and kind - and protect them as they grow from all types of danger - physical and mental, and emotional - so that our children can pick up this world and carry it into the next generation.

As many of you know, I am a gen-Xer, who grew up with Sesamee Street and I have four children under 10-years old. My brother died from aids not long ago. My husband is trying to come to terms and deal with the eventual loss of a younger brother, who he loves and respect tremendously, who is HIV positive. And when I cross the street I hold my children's hands. This sums up my perspective pretty well...

Anyone who has small children understands the tremendous weight everyday carries when they go off to school, or visit a friend, or even the first time they climb on a bicycle or climb a tree in the back yard. Apprehension, fear, prayer and a million emotions - for our little ones. I'm sorry, if you are not a parent you really won't understand the range of emotions a mother endures, daily....

I teach my children to be kind, I teach my children the golden rule, I make them wash their hands before meals, I pray with them at bedtime, I teach them not to talk to strangers, I pick their friends carefully, I teach them the 10-Commandments. I have a picture of Jesus across from a picture of George Washington in the reading room, I tell them never to pick up hitch-hikers and don't drink out of anyone else's glass. I bring them in the house during a lightning storm, I keep them home when they are sick so that they will not pass on their cold or the flu to other children. I hook up their seatbelts when we drive....and I pray that G-d will watch over them and all the other children of the world...

After all of this, can anyone at Sesame Street please tell me, why would I teach my children that HIV is NORMAL and they should treat it as such?! Anyone who has ever had children and watched NORMAL childhood play knows that it involves bangs, cuts, Contact, biting, spitting, holding, grabbing, on and on, day in and day out. Soccer, kickball, tag, volley ball, baseball...please - am I to assume that this is perfectly safe if a child with HIV is part of the playground equation?
Please, don't mix the issues here - parents are supposed to protect at the same time they teach their children - can Sesame Street's Schneider convince me that teaching is as valuable as protecting when all he wants to do is indoctrinate a character that teaches - but mentions nothing about protection?

As a mother, am I supposed to buy the Sesame Street standards, they will provide the kindness message and if that's all that happens don't I need to provide the protection lesson that includes- no scratching or spitting - wresting - no contact - no bleeding no exchange of sweat... carry Clorox and rubber gloves - disinfect immediately any blood from scrapes - report any spitting to the principal. Goodness, just review the rules and procedures for health care workers and law enforcement officers who may have been in contact with someone HIV positive...and this is what every responsible parent would have to instruct their child to do!

My G-d, no one denies that HIV infected children need love and kindness, but we as adults should at least have the mature social courage to treat dangerous communicable illness as a dangerous communicable illness - and take what ever means are necessary to stop the spread of this and any other communicable disease to other children! This is true responsible kindness and understanding and by no measure does it equal hate or meanness! An HIV child is like the child in a bubble in reverse. Geesh, are we expected to treat chicken pox and the flu with higher standards than HIV? You can fill in the blanks from there anyway you please...

Can't anyone see how our values of kindness and compassion have become the 'Trojan Horse' of those who wish to eventually destroy the family? In today's world there are people and groups whose sole aim is to tear apart what is good, pure and innocent - starting with our children.
It's much like the person who uses the story of the good Samaritan and they feign injury in order to rob or rape a passerby.

These children with aids are being used as political and social pawns and their tragedy is being exploited for a larger scheme - to normalize a radical and perverted agenda. If you want proof just ask (or answer) the following question: If these people are so full of compassion then why haven't they told the entire truth about the how/who/and why AIDS has reached this critical dimension? Fully two thirds of HIV transmission would never happen if people(both men and women) stopped dropping their pants outside of marriage. In this case just erase and replace the name of this illness with say syphilis, gonorrhea, meningitis, cancer - and see if it would qualify for a pre-school children's television show character...the conclusion itself should raise a red flag...

Yes, we can become like Africa - if we continue to have a POLITICALLY CORRECT HIV policy and we will follow them down the same path of social suicide - just continue telling half truths and taking half measures to deal with the reality of a fatal contact transmitted disease.

My 5-year old once asked me "Who's the parent here?" My answer to her was - "I am..." and before I finished, she told me that I have to "...do what a parent does." I intend to do exactly that. I will teach my children right from wrong and I will teach them love and compassion - and I will do everything in my power to protect them from ALL harm and danger. If that means don't talk to strangers as well as don't watch Sesame Street - that is what I will tell them.

I would wager to say - most who view this new character in a favorable light have no small children that they are trying to raise in today's real world. Please don't try to use my little children for politically correct ideas, indoctrination or politically protected illness...I'll stop you anyway I can.

Please, don't try to tell me the how's, what's, and why's, of raising my four children...use it on your own little ones. I watched my brother die from AIDS.

Some may say I can turn off the TV channel.
I intend to. I am a mother.

Katherine Jenerette
Freeper Profile Link
www.jenerette.com

P.S. Compassion? Try this - Have some compassion for the unborn children of the future, and those young people who will become HIV infected tomorrow if we adults don't have the courage to treat AIDS today in the same manner as other communicable and dangerous fatal diseases.

�

[kjenerette]

I guess this public education is paying off after all. I can't wait to start teaching my critical thinking class at the college. This issue of "Kids: "HIV 'r'US" is so bogus that it deserves classroom examination. Unbelievable isn't it?

Katherine

.223 Rem (5.56mm) - I just love my M-16A2...and my Car-15

[Barnacle]

Katherine,

You wrote a great essay. My wife enjoyed it too. I apologize for quibbling about the "-" thing.

Sincerely,
Barnacle Bill

[pepsionice]

Its simple...you just turn Seseme Street off. Don't let your kid watch the show. Then you turn around and send a letter to your congressman to turn off PBS funding. I have already done that with 3 congressmen and will continue to do it. PBS can go and get commercials, and watch how quick the sponsors dictate what is allowable under their name. Capt Kanagroo was the greatest kid's show ever, and its the benchmark of kid's shows today. It still ranks as number one. And they never would have gone to such a silly point as adding some gay dying muppet!

[Barnacle]

BTW, my post #22 was not inspired by you reference to firearms. ;^)

(I'm into .223 Rem (5.56mm) too.)

[kjenerette]

Thanks for the note. I really like your name, especially since me and my family live 1/2 block from the ocean. My favorite place.

Tell your wife she's a great gal...you already know it - anyone who calls her husband 'Barnacle'...

Thanks again, Katherine & Van Jenerette

www,jenerette.com

[wardaddy]

Bump...and nice profile page Mom!

[Barnacle]

Capt Kanagroo was the greatest kid's show ever..

Yeah, that's what I thought too. But it turns out that the Dancing Bear was just some guy dressed up in a costume.

[blackbart.223]

"Its simple...you just turn Seseme Street off."

Not a problem. PBS is never allowed in my house.

[kjenerette]

You ain't doin half bad yourself...by the looks of your profile page. You have been there and back and I would say that you are a credible person to address this 'Sesame Street' muppet mess with a great deal of authority....Whoa to the flag of Mississippi on your page...!SCV all the way.

[FlyVet]

We stopped watching Sesame Street long ago...

Never did like it, even as a kid in the 70's. I and my brothers were stuck on Captain Kangaroo. Plenty of our friends thought Sesame Street was the coolest, but we never got into it. The Captain was more real I think, and like Mr. Rogers never did try to fill kids' heads with political sludge.

[blackbart.223]

"This issue of "Kids: "HIV 'r'US" is so bogus that it deserves classroom examination. Unbelievable isn't it?"

It's sad when you think about it.

PS My favorite .223 is a Ruger Mini 14. It's has a 3 to 9 scope and shoots dead on out to 500 yards.

[Barnacle]

You're a gracious and forgiving Lady and Patriot.

[kjenerette]

Nice comments. I liked Mr. GreenJeans myself. BTW my step son is a USAF Academy Grad '93. My 9-year old wants to become a Navy Pilot. Lord, I was Army, my husband was Infantry, but the children all love the jets...go figure - what's a Mom to do?

[Archie Bunker on steroids]

I think the purple telletubby and the gay muppet were seen in Key West last month.

[Land of the Freep]

This is a snippet of the Yahoo story on the HIV Muppet:

“The Muppet character will join the cast of the children's show [in South Africa] in September to help educate children about AIDS at the urging of the South African government.

Some 4.7 million South Africans — one in nine — are HIV positive, more people than in any other country in the world.

There are no plans to incorporate an HIV-positive Muppet in the American or other versions of the show, said representatives of Sesame Workshop, its New York-based production company.”

---

It doesn’t appear that the lovable HIV Muppet will appear on the American TV version, so you shouldn't have to protect your children from it, or explain this very difficult issue to them.

But I was thinking that maybe this Muppet was the least or your problems. How do you explain away the deaths of two (possibly) beloved uncles to them without dealing with this issue eventually? Weren’t the uncles more lovable and real (and thus more dangerous to your children’s innocence about this subject) than any puppet that Sesame Street could ever create?

I totally understand wanting to protect them from subject matter on television that might make give them the wrong message or make you uncomfortable. But how do you shield them from the tragic HIV realities of your own family?

[sarasmom]

BTTT

[FlyVet]

Re #34: I remember them all, Mr. Green Jeans, Mr. Moose, Bunny Rabbit, Mortimer, Lariat Sam. No matter on the jets, all branches of the services have aircraft and we're all on the same side. I'd say infantry is the toughest and most noble profession although pilots don't have an easy time of it in war. I grew up playing with toy guns, toy airplanes, toy soldiers, no wonder I ended up in the AF. Two of my brothers used to "play the guitar" on their teddy bears, both ended up being part-time musicians. Who knows how a kid will turn out? I think a lot of it is decided before they are born.

[SamBees]

Is this HIV positive Muppet also homosexual? If not, do they plan on including a homosexual muppet?

[kjenerette]

Of course, this is something I will deal with on my terms with my children....not on Sesame Street producers timeline or anyone elses. I have a pretty good grasp on reality(military - world-etc.) and I don't need my pre-schoolers told by some 'outsider' about family matters. Period. I'm so glad that so many people are concerned about 'my' children...please remember one important overriding point. I AM THEIR MOTHER.

Katherine