Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Banana Rage

I try not to get angry at fruit, but this morning I found myself with some serious banana rage. I need to preface this with saying that I have a 6-year-old who is obsessed with video games, so we strictly limit when he can play them and when he can talk about them. Really - we have to limit how much he can talk about them - he gets just that obsessive. He gets far less play time than most kids his age, but we're big on limiting all screen time from the tv to the computer to video games.


I was packing his lunch for school today and I said "Do you want an apple or a banana with your lunch?" He wanders over and starts poking through the fruit bowl and sees the banana and goes ape over the thing.

Why you ask?

Because it's got an ad for a Wii video game on it. "Ohhhhh a new Wii game? Can we get it? Can we look it up online? What's it like? Is it a banana game? Does it have monkeys in it? Does it? Does it?"


I don't want advertisements for video games on my bananas, thank you very much. Can't it just say "Chiquita" or have a smiley face or something? But a Wii ad?

I am just so disgusted with ads on fruit. It makes me wonder what's next.

Stepping off my soapbox now.

13 comments:

Ribbit said...

That's just terrible! They know just how to get you, don't they.

Jeff Vandiver said...

That's unbelievable! What will they think of next?

Stefaneener said...

I'm with you on that. It's so nice to have other folks out there being harshly limiting about games and screens (says the serious blogger). It's just so nice to see them out playing for real . . . I wonder if a parents campaign would help. Well, that and pulling stickers off before you get home!

Darla said...

and then 'they' say our children do not get enought outside time!! I could go on and on about this...our girls are allowed one hour of screen a day. Most days they don't even bother...it's not uncommon to hear me yell through the house, "Everybody outside!"

donna said...

Oh my goodness, Kate. You have made me laugh out loud this morning. From age 6 to 7 my grandson was slightly obsessed with Nintendo games even though he was mostly only allowed to play it while in the car. I'm sad to say that before Nintendo came along he listened to books on tape or read library books while in the car.

The banana story is so funny. And does your son see/hear websites on commercials and then want to go online to see them? And Phillip wants to google everything.

Luv your banana photo.

donna

Kelly said...

Ya know, I must have the same bananas because my kids have been fighting over the bananas with the stickers recently- some of them have monkeys on them. I of coarse have just peeled all stickers off to end this quarrel ( without actually paying much attention to what was on them), thank-you for enlightening me! All stickers will now be removed in the store. What IS next?? Pathetic.

Dani said...

I limit to an hour as well. But there are some days I get so sick of it all, that I could just toss that damn Wii out the window.

Erin said...

I feel you pain! 2 years ago I bought a Wii for the family, they acted the same way and I threatened to sell it on Craigslist (I sell everything on CL, so they knew I was serious), yet they continued with the not listening, hiding remotes, etc - Sure enough, some other lucky family became the new owner of a slightly used Wii system a year later for Christmas! Over a year passed with nothing, and I got them DS's for Christmas, they use them appropriately now, LOL. The biggest thrill I got was knowing I don't give empty threats. Good luck, it's a hard battle!

Kate and Crew said...

Donna - yes, my son wants to look everything up online or "on that dot-com" as he puts it. Drives me batty. I always tell him we'll do it later and then he forgets... until the next commercial comes on.

Erin - I HATE the Wii and the DS. My youngest son isn't really into video games, but my oldest son is oddly obsessive. If it was up to me, we wouldn't have any in the house, but my husband likes them more than I do, so I'm dealing with them. He can play the Wii by earning chips for good behavior. He gets a poker chip for good behavior and he can put it in one of 3 buckets. One of the buckets is for video games and it's 5 min's of playtime for one chip. Plus he knows he can only play on weekends when my hubby is home since he can't play the Wii without help and I don't have the time or energy to sit there with him doing each step of these complex saga games . So depending on our schedule he may get an hour or so on a weekend and then he might not play again for a couple of weeks. Still drives me batty.

Kathy said...

I am sorry... your title had me chortling away here. Banana rage... raging bananas... and then I started thinking of the movie with Robin Williams playing Mrs. Doubtfire. "oh dear, it was a drive by fruiting!" when he nailed someone with a piece of fruit.

Pardon me. I regress.

Some days, you have to grab humor at moments that others may not.

But, in all seriousness, ads pop up for our children everywhere and it is frustrating to try to be positive and I also find that disturbing.

However, reliving Mrs. Doubtfire and the drive by fruiting, made me laugh!

kathy

Amy said...

Ugh! Can we never escape marketing?!

Kate and Crew said...

Kathy - the drive-by fruiting is one of the best movie lines EVER! LOLOL

Amy - exactly! What's next though? TV shows advertised on apples?

Melody said...

I guess it was only a matter of time - I bought a bag of Disney apples a couple of weeks ago. Not because I have kids or wanted Disney anything, but because they looked better than the other apples. Why do they need to put the same kind of apples in a bag labeled Disney? To make money and to advertise, of course.

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