Just For Me

This blog is just for me, to record my thoughts, to note stuff I am afraid to forget, to brag or complain about anything and everything, just to mess around or whatever. So here I start; better get stuck in now that I am online.

The other day I was looking for a website where my kids could watch some French cartoons because they are half-French and only speak English. Their grandparents (my parents) are French and as my girls grow up, whenever we visit or talk on the phone, we have communication problems. Of course this was going to be obvious, there was no problem when my babies were just a few months-old because they didn't talk, but now that they are a bit older, it's getting a bit more difficult and being lazy as I am, once I've started talking English to them since they were born, it's a bit tricky for me now to switch languages when I am talking to them.

So here I go, looking for French TV channels online and I got pretty excited when I found France1, France2 and especially France3 which promised lots of great cartoons that I was hoping my kids would enjoy watching (with a bit of translating help from me). Unfortunately, these channels are only available to watch for people who are in France, which really pisses me off since we are in Ireland!

I decide to go on YouTube and see if there was anything, maybe some short French cartoons, and I'm sure there must be a few but I didn't get the chance to finf out since I spent the rest of the evening looking at these:







I then couldn't help remembering how sad were these cartoons! They were greats and had their funny moments but man, now that I think of it, they were depressing! No wonder I cried so much when I was a kid!

Nowadays cartoons are mostly educational (at least the ones aimed at 4-12 year-olds) but it looks like in those times (I grew up in the 70's) whoever made these cartoons banked on the emotional side of things and I can't help wondering what difference this makes on the children who grow up watching those cartoons: does this mean that the grown-ups of today focus more on relationships while the grown-ups of tomorrow will be more into their careers? Am I bringing up my children to become free of emotions? I really can't say but I must admit I almost cried remembering all those tear-jerkers from my past and that made me feel good!

To all cartoon writers out there, I say bring back the tears! Nothing like a big tragedy on TV to make most kids realize they are so lucky to be living a comfortable life and that there are worse things that can happen other than running out of sweets or having to eat their vegs!