Somewhere around my fifteenth time (before noon) reading the children’s book Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?, I had a realization.
I was happily repeating the same book to my fifteen-month-old daughter Senita because just as we are physically “what we eat,” we are culturally “what we consume.”
She’s hit a point in her development where we can no longer predict which word will be the next into her vocabulary, what toys she’ll favor, or even what clothes she’s willing to wear.
What do baby socks look like, anyway? I can hardly remember.
It’s thrilling when Senita surprises me by understanding something new. In the past few days alone she’s been able to retrieve specific toys by name (like her beloved Owlivia), imitate animal noises on demand (hoot hoot), and started incorporating specific dance moves to songs (Itsy Bitsy Spider).
By constantly reading the same books and repeating the same songs to my daughter, I’m forming her vocabulary which will have a huge impact on how she processes and perceives the world.
Everything’s a “duck” or “baby” until suddenly she moos when she sees a cow or volunteers that the horn on the bus goes beep beep beep. Things she couldn’t comprehend yesterday are cornerstones of her worldview today.
Essentially, she’s forming the very first parts of her culture and expanding it every single day. It’s all building off associations reinforced through repetition.
Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? is great at this because it simply lists different animals and colors while visually presenting them in a stimulating way (brown bear, red bird, green frog).
This has made me acutely aware of the impact that media has on our perceptions. My grandparents understood this too. Throughout my entire childhood, they made sure we always had a subscription to National Geographic magazine.
I used to joke that there’s nothing an eight-year-old needs more than an in-depth analysis of Chernobyl, but now I understand.
Early associations are powerful. I’ve been to enough funerals with sports-team shout outs included in the eulogy to know they often become life-defining characteristics.
It comforts me to see her making associations, even when they’re ridiculous like with Brown Bear’s purple cat. There’s no such thing as a purple cat in real life. Why am I subjecting my daughter to fake hues?
I wish the author had swapped the goldfish with the purple cat for a little authenticity.
I wonder if she sees the cats in our neighborhood and finds them less spectacular because I’ve trained her to expect them to be purple. It’s exactly the sort of thing I’d fixate on.
Headlines have a big impact on how I perceive things.
That’s why I’m deliberately chasing less headlines and trusting a few well-vetted news organizations to bring me the news I need in a timely-enough matter.
I remember a time when I could only read the Sunday New York Times and be the most informed person in the room. Even if it took me three days to read it.
Thanks to the global pandemic, I don’t make small talk anymore so why keep fueling the impulse to be up-to-the-minute on news?
Let the experts sift it out for me and put it in some context. Especially since they’re kind enough to write it all down and leave it for me at the end of my driveway to get to when I have time.
Any reexamination of societal values in a post-pandemic world will require liberals to own the fact that they’re just as complicit in excessive indulgences as anyone.
Because they spent the past two decades praising the Daily Show instead of 60 Minutes, we’ve gotten punch line politics. Headlines aren’t lead-ins to stories so much as they are setups to jokes.
We’ve lost our ability to put things into context.
Is there really any difference between the elderly couple trembling with fear throughout the global pandemic while watching CNN and the one trembling with indignation while watching FOX News?
It all builds off associations reinforced through repetition: brown bear, yellow duck, red state, orange man, blue wave, white plight, black lives. What do you see?
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