Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Circus Ignorance

This is probably more of a status update than a blog post, but someone who's posted as infrequently as I have in the last month shouldn't impose arbitrary, self-defined filters on content. 

When Charlie saw a picture of Barnum & Bailey elephants in the newspaper and asked what it was, I said "That's the circus. We're going there on Saturday night." "So," he asked "Teddy and I are going to have a babysitter?" I was shocked that my nine-year-old didn't know that the circus is a family event. Then while I was drafting this post, Paige told Teddy that we'd be going, and he burst into tears and said he hates the circus. When I asked what he knew about the circus, he said he'd seen something on TV about it. 

What has happened in our culture when school-age kids don't know about the circus and aren't dying to go?

[Update: apparently the boys got pretty excited watching this video of the elephants walking through downtown Pittsburgh.]

4 comments:

Anne H. said...

Ah, dear Teddy. I'm going to be sad when he's too old to burst into tears. Good that the boys are going. It should be quite a learning experience.

Azure said...

Over here on the left coast, circuses are definitely out of fashion because of allegations of animal cruelty. I have a politically moderate friend who won't take her child to Sea World for the same reason.

Amy M said...

So, how was it?

JFo said...

The circus was terrific, and of course the boys really enjoyed it. Their favorite part was the seven dirtbikes in the steel globe cage thing. That was my fav part as a kid, too, but back then, there were only two dirtbikes. A simpler time.