My son has taken to attaching the phrase BBC America to everything that he says. “This is BBC America, announcing Aidan has to go to bed,” “This is BBC America saying I’m still hungry and won’t eat the rest of the ratatouille.” You name it, it has become newsworthy. And not just newsworthy, but worthy of a hard-hitting, sophisticated news slot – he adopts what I think might be a British-type accent to go along with his

homemade headshots

pronouncements (I know it’s BBC America, but it’s his show) and coupled with an enthusiasm to match that of a game show host, cadences intact. Think Bruce Forsythe meets Anderson Cooper, and a little bit of that Furniture Center guy yelling, “we want to save you money” thrown into the mix and you’ve got a taste of the veritable Anglo socio-cultural smorgasboard that my son evokes as he narrates his every move.

You might presume first that we are an edgy, politically-concerned family who watches the news (BBC, of course) with regularity and discusses it over the dinner table – and while we might be a handful of these things occasionally, we don’t watch the news, we’re rarely reverent (or seated) long enough to discuss world affairs together and we don’t even get the BBC. So we have something of a mystery on our hands.

Still, my son persists. “This is BBC America saying I’m too hot, bring up the fan….
Pah – LEEZE.”

What’s most interesting to me about being in the presence of constant news-style narration, however, is less

hard-hitting coverage...

where he “got it” (I mean, where did he get his obsession with the phrase ‘butt-crack’ or the idea that if he gives me extra Monopoly money, I’ll never turn into an ‘old lady’? Kids just pull stuff out our overstuffed cosmos I believe, surrounded by it as they are, like the waves of radiation from our cell phones), and more where he’s going with it. What does it mean to have a near six-year-old turning his singular voice into the voice of Brit-America, every statement made intended to make headlines, or, at least, be palatable to a fatigued and oversaturated audience?

“This is BBC America saying, (like a broken record), I won’t brush my teeth, I want to look like Dobby [think dwarf-like and toothless? Harry Potter character].”

To explain where I’m going with this – and I’m not even sure yet, frankly, so please bear with me for a mere moment longer while I ‘get it sorted’ – I have a feeling I’m going to have to revisit a rare conversation we had over the dinner table, with a dear – and, notably, childless friend a few months ago. She, unlike the clan from which I hail, actually does discuss politics over dinner, and in particular the health politics of Monsanto and their plans for the forced use of genetically modified ‘super-seeds’, or, as we lovingly referred to it, “the evil seed.” My son sat quietly, sorting the rice from the lentils until dessert, and didn’t contribute or even indicate that he was listening until, for the next five days he asked with each meal, petrified, if he was eating “evil seed” and what it would do to him. Now I know that kids take in all kinds of information, and you never know what will make a lasting impression and what won’t, but lets also keep in mind that my son has been exposed to Harry Potter and JR Tolkien, and Robin Hood, images of fear, and darkness, fantasy good & evil, and all sorts of ‘children’s’ programming that a good argument might be made was sheer negligence on my part that he ever got exposed to at his age in the first place – and it seems to make no clear mark on his psyche other than the delight of the fantasy. Nothing. Then this, the dangers of Monsanto’s genetically engineered agricultural methodology sinks its fangs in. This is not predictable stuff, this parenting business…

“This is BBC America saying what would happen if the whole world wore monkey underpants on their head when it rains instead of umbrellas?” (direct quote, I promise.)  What indeed?  The news has never been so creative…

I think, if having the BBC America suddenly turn their broadcast central into my loft apartment has left any indelible marks on me, its that, in this modern age of parenting, the old rules about ‘good guys and bad guys’, ‘cops and robbers’, ‘sharks and minnows’, ‘appropriate and inappropriate’, ‘real and imaginary’ may have

a man of the people

become so eroded by the information age, that my own compass is left spinning, leaving my son to announce at once that everything and nothing is important. “This is BBC America announcing my new sailboat has won the race, and I have to pee, and you forgot my Bakugan ball as usual.” And maybe it is even a bit refreshing too, to be reminded how important the small things are to a child, how noteworthy, and how the world thru their eyes is something COMPLETELY different than the world thru mine ever has been or will be. He may be struck by the ‘evil seed’ and keep eyes wide open thru 3D animated T-Rexes. I’ll cover his eyes at the easy stuff for him to digest, and keep his eyes wide open through conversations and impressions that strike him at the core. I just can’t see the world thru his eyes no matter how I try.

…Except, when the BBC America announces that I should sit up and take notice. And maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly why he does it. He’s sharing the BBC Aidan, as anchor, producer and editorial staff combined. In each BBC moment, I get soundbites from his world, and I’m blessed that he wants to deliver them. And mostly he’s taking the ‘small stuff’ of his life for this crazy, busy, overworked, over-processed, over-informed age, and for his crazy, busy, overworked, over-processed, over-informed parents – and making it big, big enough to see, and big enough, for a BBC moment, to share.