I’ll be the first to admit that my kid watches way too much TV. Recently, we got Sling TV to replace cable because we were sick of dealing with the local company’s monopoly. They have all the usual channels, but sometimes extra channels pop up or are added to the packages. One of the ones added this month was an entire channel devoted to all things Ryan Kaji, of Ryan’s Mystery Playdate fame.
When my 5-year-old daughter found this channel, she was literally quivering with excitement, and now it’s all she wants to watch.
“My boyfriend has a channel all for him!”
Yeah, you heard that right.
Let me start at the beginning...
Obviously, this isn’t going away, so why am I so uncomfortable with it?
I think I’ve drilled it down to two reasons. First, Ryan is a celebrity. There is an extremely high chance that she will never meet him. But she doesn’t understand the concept of fame and celebrity. To her, he’s just a kid who might live down the street. Maybe it has something to do with everyone having the ability to make videos and send them to each other. She can watch videos of her baby cousin, of her friends — does she think those are the same as TV shows? I don’t know how to tell her without breaking her heart that she’s probably never going to meet Ryan Kaji.
The other big issue I have is, like, how does she even know about crushes yet? She can’t possibly have those kinds of feelings yet, right? Doesn’t she need to go through puberty first? Though if I think about it, it’s very possible that she’s just mirroring behaviors she’s seen on other TV shows, or in books and movies. Miraculous! Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir is another show she enjoys, and much of the plot revolves around superheroes having crushes on each others’ alter egos.
But the way she gets when she’s talking about Ryan is really something else
I suppose it won’t be long before she’s reading Tiger Beat and taping up posters of boy bands in her room. But she’s my baby girl! I guess I thought I had more time…
