This young woman is a drug dealer

This is Dora. That silly monkey on her right is "Boots." Dora and Boots are crack to children. Allow me to explain.

We started out this whole parenting gig with the idea that the children wouldn't watch TV at all until they were a few years old. It's one of those things you think you'll do, like not yell, or lose 10 pounds, or maybe not drink beer. These ideas are born out of good intentions, but they're simply impractical.

Early on, when the kids were old enough to sit up, we would occasionally let them watch 10 minutes of a Baby Einstein video or something. This was usually done so one of us (usually the wife) could keep the duct tape holding the house together fresh enough to keep it all from falling apart. The kids seemed to be amused by the show, they'd at least be quiet and watch it. But the show only held their attention for a brief period and then it was back to parenting.

A few months ago, we recorded an episode of Dora the Explorer. We all sat down to watch it together. I remember the episode well (probably because I've seen it more times than Star Wars at this point). Dora and Boots were helping a baby duck, who had blown off the page of a fucking book, get back to her mother who was still in the book! I know...trippy, right?? Along the way, they managed to do all sorts of psychedelic things. Like warm up the cold baby duck by using a crayon to color the sun yellow. I've got all sorts of problems with this. But the kids...the kids were freaking hooked. They stopped chatting, stopped eating chalk, stopped crying, stopped blinking, and basically went totally catatonic. We instantly recognized that this was a BRILLIANT way to buy 22 and 1/2 minutes of uninterrupted free time to read e-mail or update Facebook. Or sweep.. but mostly Facebook. At this point we're totally doing the high five of parental victory, rejoicing at the mastery of the toddler psyche. You see where this is going, right?

We fucked it up.

What seems like the next morning, Nolan starts saying "where's Dora" and "when Dora on?" After one episode. Then Lilly starts saying "I wanna watch Dora" (except when Lilly says it, there are really long gaps between the words... I...wanna....watch....DORA). It seems that they had their first taste of children's television, and they really took to it. This is a real problem for us, as the last thing we want is to be TV parents who let their children grow up in the warm glow of whatever programming is on Nick Jr.

So we lied to our kids. And we still lie to them.

In response to their inquiry about the location of Dora the Drug Dealer, we simply told them that Dora wasn't on. Then, in an attempt to satisfy our own needs to watch at least ten minutes of the Today Show, we told them that only the "news" was on. Both lies, as the Today Show AND a good day's worth of Dora were safely saved on our DVR. But those kids don't know what a DVR is, or even how to spell it.

So now we've established a false choice. If "Dora" isn't on, then it's the "news." So the kids say "DORA" (even when the TV is off), and we say "Dora's not on right now." Then they say "just the news!" It's a real struggle, but we've established in their brains that if it's not "Dora" that's on TV, then it's the "news" -- even if it's Friday Night Lights.

I'll never forget the moment I realized I had a REAL problem, on my hands. Nolan was finishing up dinner. The wife and I predetermined that they could watch an episode of Dora before going to bed. So Nolan finishes his food and says "where'd Dora go?" And I asked him "do you wanna watch Dora?" And then it got really weird. The boy starts panting the words "yeah, yeah, I wanna watch Dora!" So I let him down out of his seat and he RUNS to the couch. The boy ran. He sits on the couch facing a dark TV and starts pumping his fists and chanting "DORA DORA DORA DOOOORRRRAAAA!" Then he starts screaming "Dooo-rrrrraaaaaa!"

Now Lilly wasn't passive in this either. Once she got wind that we were going to watch Dora, she also freaked out. We let her out of her chair and she bolted to take a seat next to Nolan on the couch. She was so excited that she couldn't talk at all. Finally I got the show started and it all went quiet. Not a sound. They were hooked.

I'm serious, there is very little difference between this and what happened to Chris Rock's character in New Jack City.

It's done now. The cat is out of the bag. The kids wake up in the morning and ask "Dora on?" Then we say "no" and they say "it news." Every day. Same shit. Except now it's not just Dora, it's also her pesky do-gooding cousin Diego as well. We had to introduce Diego to the mix after we found out they don't make pullup diapers for boys with Dora on them. So we had to try to get Nolan to make a new TV friend with Diego. Yes, I know I just ruined his life once his friends get old enough to figure out this blog is about him. At least I didn't write about getting poop on his head.

Parents might know this, but most probably don't. Every Dora episode follows the same formula. They get a target to locate (mama duck, Dora's house, the Red Mountain, etc), they ask their huminoid friend "the map" to help them, the "Map" sings them a song about how it's the MAPPPPPP, and then tells Dora and her talking monkey Boots how to get to where they need to go. Then Dora and Boots sing a song about where they're going and how they'll get there. Along the way, Dora will ask her backpack to produce some mystical item to help them, which creates another sing-along montage where an animated backpack displays upwards of a dozen items that were supposedly held in the backpack. It's truly amazing what that small bilingual girl can hold in her backpack. Tractors, shovels, coats, Magnus Samuelsson.

So the show is already written in a way that would make parents think a bunch of stoners wrote this stuff. But I tuned into this one episode that sealed the deal. Dora had to go into SPACE with her monkey friend. Space. So they "found" a rocket in the woods that yelled "arriba" when it took off. This must be a remnant of the fledgling Mexican Space Program. So Dora and Boots end up in freaking space strapped to a rocketship of questionable structural integrity. Then Dora finds that her magical bottomless backpack has a goddamned space suit in it. And of course, it fits perfectly. At one point in this extra-special episode of Dora, they end up eating "magical cookies" to navigate their way through space. I'm guessing that was a direct reference to the magical brownies the show's writers polished off.

All in all, my conclusion here is that Dora is a necessary evil. In a perfect world, we'd raise our kids without fast food and television, but this is America goddammit. If we can't make our kids fat and stupid at an early age through saturated fat and drug-inspired children's programming, then what kind of a country is this?