By\u00a0Genevieve A. Suzuki | Gen-X in a Millennial Word<\/p>\n
This October, Caroll Spinney, the original Big Bird, retired after nearly 50 years of playing most everyone\u2019s favorite yellow-feathered friend.<\/p>\n
Upon reading the announcement, the child in me cried. Heaven knows Mr. Spinney certainly deserves to retire and enjoy his golden years, but it was one more painful cut into what\u2019s left of my childhood memories.<\/p>\n
Every weekday as a preschooler and young grade-school-aged child, I looked forward to watching \u201cSesame Street,\u201d a happy Jim Henson-muppet-filled show that dealt with everyday issues confronting kids my age. I laughed hard at Oscar the Grouch, the green guy in the garbage can \u2014 also voiced by Mr. Spinney \u2014 and loved Big Bird, who reminded me of myself in that I played a lot of games with imaginary friends. I also felt OK about growing up in an apartment building because the \u201cSesame Street\u201d kids also had an urban upbringing. The \u201cSesame Street\u201d creators were actually quite successful when it came to children like me; we felt like we had representation.<\/p>\n
And now, as a parent of a 3-year-old, I find myself grasping for good programming for him to watch. Although \u201cSesame Street\u201d is still on TV, I have a hard time making sure I record it. Worse, he\u2019s often glued to YouTube Kids, which runs the gamut from quality educational clips to brightly colored mindless drivel featuring inane songs, such as \u201cFinger Family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite \u201cFinger Family\u201d giving us a hilariously memorable moment with our son, Deacon, who enjoyed sticking up Brother Finger for a week before finally understanding it really isn\u2019t OK to flash Brother to his 84-year-old grandma, I have almost zero appreciation for its merits. The worst thing is \u201cFinger Family\u201d has birthed an unimaginable number of random versions from Mickey Mouse to ninjas to families from Korea, India and the Russia. (In my humble opinion, \u201cFinger Family\u201d could very well be worse than \u201cBaby Shark.\u201d)<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, I can\u2019t help feeling an intense sadness for what will become Deacon\u2019s memories. My childhood buddies made movies we rushed to see in theaters and songs we still love to sing \u2014 Kermit\u2019s \u201cRainbow Connection\u201d is still among my all-time favorites as is \u201cC is for Cookie\u201d by Cookie Monster.<\/p>\n
Seeing my toddler zip from clip to clip on his iPad, I know it\u2019s my fault. I haven\u2019t given him a chance to slow down and stroll the \u201cStreet.\u201d But there\u2019s a little voice in my head whispering he may lose out somehow if I become a Luddite and refuse to move him forward with the available technology.<\/p>\n
Still, the upcoming Fred Rogers movie and Mr. Spinney\u2019s retirement remind me I owe it to Deacon to give him time with some of my old friends. Friends who taught me being different is OK, being sad every now and then is normal, and that \u201cplease\u201d and \u201csorry\u201d are immensely important words among us humans.<\/p>\n
Perhaps my generation of parents will soon discover the slower-paced, gentler lessons of our childhood actually placed us ahead of the pack. If that\u2019s true, we will need to find our new Caroll Spinney, Fred Rogers and Jim Henson before it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n
\u2014Genevieve A. Suzuki is a local attorney who lives and works in La Mesa.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By\u00a0Genevieve A. Suzuki | Gen-X in a Millennial Word This October, Caroll Spinney, the original Big Bird, retired after nearly 50 years of playing most everyone\u2019s favorite yellow-feathered friend.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":225495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11548","_seopress_titles_title":"Big Bird in a \u2018Finger Family\u2019 world","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11548],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-la-mesa-courier"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}