Any day now. The Child Welfare authorities are going to come knocking on my door.
I can only hope that they'll believe me when I say that it was Donald Duck who got my little son hooked on drugs, and this is a problem that is historical and dialectal, not of substance!
Master J has always been obsessed with signs. From the moment he could wield a pencil, he wanted to make them himself. Figuring this was an excellent way to sieze on emergent learning principles, his mother and I have always been accommodating, writing the words out for him to copy or (increasingly now) spelling them out for him orally so that he can write them out for himself.
It started with road signs. All over the house we had stop, give way, slow down, roadwork ahead, drive safely and even wrong way go back!
And then just about anything J saw on a screen or door was potential sign-writing fodder. Exit, Private Keep Out, Dangerous Chemicals, Do Not Touch... the list is endless.
Then, thanks to some of those old classic Donald Duck cartoons (which we found for J on YouTube alongside a lot of other cartoons), we started getting things like Test Pilot Donald, Giant Redwood and -- believe it or not -- OLD RELIABLE GEYSER ERUPTS AT 12 O'CLOCK.
Unfortunately, it was the archaic Donald Duck cartoons which also gave J his 'drug problem'. Take a look at the clip for yourself, and take note of the sign that appears at about the 3:00 mark...
Harmless, really. Right?
I mean, writing DRUGS on a bit of paper couldn't hurt that much, could it?
But why, of all the signs and words he might become 'hooked on', did it have to become this one?
J's been asking us to help him with DRUGS. He's been looking for his DRUGS. He left his DRUGS in the bedroom. He really likes DRUGS.
Oh sure, laugh it up if you will... I found it mildly amusing until he brought home a picture he'd done at school, and there in immaculate writing in the corner was the word DRUGS.
I saw the scene...
"Oh, what's that you're drawing, J... and -- oh. J, do you know what this word is?"
"Sure, Mrs. K. It's DRUGS."
"Right, yes... Well, why did you write that, J?"
(Shrugs casually). "I just like DRUGS."
"Yes, okay then... Do your mum and dad know about this?"
"DRUGS? Yes, of course they do. They give it [meaning "spell it for"] to me."
"They do, do they? Okay, just wait here for a minute, J. I need to make a few phone calls... Got some extra clothes in your bag? Good -- might be staying with some new friends tonight, that sounds like fun, doesn't it...?"
With this sort of exchange in my head, when J wanted to make another DRUGS card tonight, I thought I better tackle this and do something about it.
So how in the name of all that is holy do you explain to a five-year-old that, even though the word came from one of your favourite cartoon shows, you want them to stop using it? Especially at school!?
My approach was to be honest all the way and not attempt too many shortcuts.
"J, those Donald Duck movies were made a very, very long time ago, and that word DRUGS meant something different then."
"What did it mean?"
"Like, MEDICINE."
"Medicine? Okay... Drugs is medicine?"
"Well, yes, they are... but these days it kind of means something different. Something that is often bad."
"Bad? ... Bad medicine?"
"Exactly! That's exactly it! It now means bad medicine that can do bad things to people."
"So why does Donald Duck like it?"
"Because, as I told you, it was a very long time ago and the word just meant medicine then. Now it kind of means bad medicine. People don't really like to hear that word."
"Oh.... What about... RUGS?"
"RUGS?"
"Yes, RUGS. If DRUGS is bad medicine, maybe RUGS is good medicine?"
"Erm, ah, right. Why don't we just say medicine?"
"No."
"No?"
"It's a really loooong word, I think. It will take me all day to write that..."
(Strangled noises come from father)
Anyway, we're getting there.
And in the meantime, I need your advice...
Should I try to explain all this to his school teacher?
And what about the parents of all his friends???
I mean, if J came home one day and said his best mate T spent all day talking about doing drugs...
You catch my drfit, I hope!
=D
P.S. I'm sure anyone out there familiar with the old Disney cartoons would raise a flag of warning about letting today's children see some of them. But that's another topic for another day, perhaps...
