@TONEY–you didn't offend me, and thank you for the compliment, lol. I am always interested in learning more, so if you want to share I'd be interested in what you have to post, if you still feel like it, but as I said, I am uninformed, so I fear not able to carry on much of a conversation about it.
And OMG–please forgive me for the small novel here. It's a topic that I am passionate about, and I tend to go on too long. In my defense, I assume you can skim as you wish, so didn't filter as much as I might otherwise. I don't assume my opinions are all that fascinating to anyone, really, but I do enjoy writing... lol. I apologize for the length.
@Lordzeb:
Do you think that a kid’s show will have more influence on a child's views on same sex couples than how he is raised and the hundreds of other things he will experience that will directly or indirectly alter his idea on homosexuality. You seem to campaign that children are more complex than I give them credit for but I don't buy that, I'm giving them the credit they deserve. I think kids only seem clever and insightful when you forget how their mind is working. You've got the books so you should know. Simplicity is the key to most of these clever ideas. Do you think your daughter will remember her theory of reincarnation when she's 18? When people remind you of the things you thought and did as a child do you think, that was pretty clever of me, or that was pretty silly now that I think about it. I think when people grow up most of those ideas fall in the latter section and the amazement at childhood understanding is really just amazement at what it's like to think simply without doubts or the experiences gained from age. Ideas, thoughts, memories, beliefs, lessons..all these things mix and swirl and mesh to form very simple thoughts that branch out to other levels. A child seeing a same sex couple on TV doesn't mean that they'll see it as normal. I don't think it'll amount to much and it will amount to less and less the older he gets. It will mix and mesh with hundreds of other thoughts and experiences until he's formed his own opinion.
No of course I don't think kids' shows can teach a child to be tolerant all by themselves, and I believe I stated that several times in my previous post. What I said, several times, is that what TV and other media can provide is a means desensitizing society about things that seems strange or unacceptable. It's the exact same thing people use to complain about it–it desensitizes people to violence and etc. If that is true (and research seems to bear that out) then it can work on things other than violence as well, is my thinking.
We aren't really that far off in our thinking, from what I am reading in your posts. I agree that kids build their ideas and eventual opinions little by little. In fact some of the research I've read indicates that kids' personalities and many of their attitudes about the world (as in how friendly a place it is, and other big picture questions like that) are formed by the age of three. I know for a fact that we have a lot more synapses at birth than we do by age ten. One example–we come fully equipped to create any sound what-so-ever that humans are capable of creating (right down to those unusual clicking noises some aboriginal tribes make) and gradually lose the ability to create the sounds that we do not need as we assimilate our native tongue(s), so that by the time children are about 10, give or take, they may be unable to learn a new language without an accent. We can still learn new languages, with individual degrees of success, but there is a window there. Doesn't that seem counter-intuitive to you? That rather than learn the sounds and add the wiring to go with it, we drop the sounds we don't need and lose the wiring? The interesting thing about it is that some studies seems to say that if you expose a child to the sounds of a language, even only as individual phonemes (sounds) and not as part of an attempt to communicate, that the child may be able to later learn that language with less or no accent. And the exciting thing? The window phenomenon seems to be a thing common to a lot of the development of a human being, interestingly enough.
For the purposes of our discussion here, IMHO what it means is that images on a TV screen may indeed help a child grow up with more of a chance to open his thinking and be more tolerant. You're right, often by adulthood people can't even recall why they think the way they do about things–it just seems like "common sense." (I learned just the teeniest bit what a fallacy the idea of "common sense" is when I was lucky enough to live in Japan for a couple years on two occasions, and got to see people living with a whole different set of ideas they considered "common sense.") The fact is that remembered or not, experiences and stimuli go into the melting pot that creates the person--with more ingredients getting added as life is lived, so there never is a "final product," and if a child is exposed to a thing, however peripherally, it then is that tiny degree more familiar to him. I'm saying that we have more of a chance to open a crack in there for a new idea if there was some exposure to the idea early on.
I read once that homophobia could actually be a product of misogyny. It's not that they hate gay people it's that they hate the idea of a man lowering himself to a position of a woman. That is only degrading because the person views woman, whether consciously or subconsciously as not equal to a man on some level. When you talk to most homophobic guys one of the first things out of their mouth is "how could they let another man do that to them" but they do the same thing all the time to women. Why is it ok for the woman to take that position, probably because they feel that it's a woman's place and i don't mean that in a "It's adam and eve, not adam and steve" kinda way but in a "I am i man, a man is defined by his penis, his penis is used to penetrate women, women are to be penetrated, to penetrate is to be a man."
Wow–interesting analysis. I suppose it could have something to do with the whole thing, but it's the first time I've heard that particular theory, which TBH sounds a bit Freudian (He who invented the rather crack pot idea of penis envy in women, no offense) and I am a woman, after all, so I don't know what it feels like to be a man thinking out this stuff, but it seems rather sad if men are indeed going around thinking they are defined by their male appendages alone. I don't feel like going into what sex can be if it's between a loving couple, but that whole inner monologue seems pretty off to me, and yeah, if that is a person's inner monologue, they are going to have issues with a lot of stuff, not just homosexuality.
All the kids shows in the world can't erase the type of thoughts that lead up to that conclusion. It's reinforced on almost every level of thoughts process from seeing the father as the breadwinner to watching porn where the guy has a big dick. The very act of teaching him the difference between men and women could plant that seeds that mix and mold into ideas that bring him to be everything you'd raise him not to be. Little thoughts that may mean nothing individually but they mix and compound until they create the real thought, the real idea. All your teaching may yield a more open minded child but i don't think that will be determined by teaching him these things at a young age. They will just become tiny tiny thoughts that make up his true opinion and i guess if you fill him with enough tiny thoughts you tip the scale in the direction you want him to go but really he's at the mercy of the world. Though seeing that same sex couple could be the spark that ignites the series of thoughts latter on that leads to acceptance of same sex couples but i think that process is extremely difficult to control and manage and isn't as simple as showing him same sex couples early on. The ideas behind accepting them later in life are too complex.
Well, I don't agree here, which is ok. I am going to keep up with all my teaching, because if I don't at least try, I will have lost whatever chance I had. As you may have been able to tell from the part of my post just above this, I don't necessarily agree that all men form the sorts of attitudes described there, yet they are all exposed, more or less, to the same messages from society. I truly believe if I take the time to teach my kids to question what they hear and see, and talk to them about it, they will learn the habit of critical thinking, and it may make a difference for them. (You think we don't talk endlessly over the ideas presented in OP? Think again.) Kids are trusting people–another of my beliefs is that I must try my best not to lie to them, since that would abuse that trust. How can I teach them if they don't trust me? And my teaching comes not just from talking or seeing things but also from modeling--so I need to live what I teach. Then they see it in action, right? I certainly believe that I can have an affect on their outlooks as the go through life--if what you say and their inner attitudes and perceptions develop from little ideas, like drops of water, then I have a duty as a parent to try my best to give them the bucket into which those drops fall. If I do my best to instill the values I feel are important, at some point I have to have the trust in them to go out in the world and act on those ideas and ideals. You can't wait to do all that--it starts as soon as that little being pops into the world and starts experiencing it. I get to teach them less and less as time slips by and they get older--I have to know that I owe them a context that allows them to function and be happy, or we've already lost before we've even started.
Funny–this last bit about parenting has seemingly so little to do with the original topic, and yet so much. It's really at the heart of your question, isn't it? Of course parents are attempting to indoctrinate their youth with their beliefs and values, and of course society at large has values inherent in it as well, that surround our kids as soon as they step out of the door. Can TV change overcome that with ideas that are contrary? Maybe not (although Madison Avenue would like a word about the power of media)—especially if the contrary ideas are too alien to current values—but it can, I believe, push an existing change that may be waiting just over in the wings to center stage a little faster. Like I said--maybe what TV can do is be part of a larger societal movement by planting the tiniest seed saying that something really isn't that odd, after all. The fact is that the world keeps changing and values shift—a lot. The things that leap to mind are mostly changes about women and minorities. Things change. Part of that is brought about, I believe, by people like me teaching our kids. It’s not a small thing—but it’s brought about by small ideas.
It was interesting to read most of the replies made on this forum. I found out about two weeks ago that my partner of three years had been cheating on me for the past two years. The excuse? It's in my nature and your fat lol It sucks, but what can I do? He introduced me to One Piece about a year ago and I have been watching ever since. I just started watching the "Thriller Bark" saga and I'm pretty excited about it. Anyway, it's hard enough to find friends who watch One Piece, let alone gay friends lol Anyway, Stop by and say hello. Hope all of you are doing well 
