can i get a role model in here?!

Here's me stepping up on my soapbox.

I am beyond tired of a lot of the mainstream television programming out there geared toward girls.

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If you know me or this blog at all then you know that I am the proud mama to a beautiful and intelligent 6 year old girl (along with a cutie 15 month old boy).

My daughter, like most kids, loves to watch tv.

Her choices basically come down to the PBS Kids line up or something on Netflix.

Now Netflix is really getting just about EVERYTHING out there imaginable for kids.

You have a pretty large catalog of both current and, ahem, older tv shows and movies available.

Audrey is very much like most kids, in that her favorite shows are constantly changing, so she watches a HUGE variety of things.

Something I am noticing in this ever changing stream of media is that there are a lot of shows out there that are aimed at a young female audience.

However, there are very few that center around positive influences.

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I'm finding that I'm having to "restrict" Audrey from watching a lot of shows that she wants to.
For example, the other day she was watching a cartoon called Horseland, which is centered on a group of kids who, well, ride horses.
This is a show that as of a few months ago was a regular on one of the stations that has Saturday morning cartoons.
From the living room Bryan and I could hear the show playing and we both thought that we heard one of the girls on the show say, "I hate you!" to another girl.
After asking Audrey about it and receiving a confirmation that this was said, I thought back to other things I had seen on the show.
Lots and lots of cattiness and put downs back and forth, between girls.
Which is what led us to tell Audrey that she couldn't watch Horseland anymore.

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Unfortunately I'm starting to see a correlation between what she watches and how she acts.
Several times recently there have been tears (hers, not mine) over how I'm doing her hair or what clothes I picked for her to wear.
Why the tears?
Each time she has said that she was afraid her friends at school were going to make fun of her.
After asking her repeatedly if this has happened before and getting a consistent, "No.",
a light bulb finally clicked on in this mama's head.
Stuff like this always happens on these "girl-centric" shows.
So now, on top of weeding out shows that are too "old" in content for her, such as Hannah Montana and iCarly, I also have to be aware of how these girls (often cartoon characters) act toward their peers.
Because I'm sorry, putting a bun in a 6 year old's hair should not produce fear induced tears.

xoxo.