Mom.Dad.Chat

Do you know that there are websites set up specifically to sell McDonald’s toddler toys? That people actually trade and collect those McDonald’s Happy Meals toys? From Hello Kitty to Hot Wheels cars, the fast food chain has promoted them all.

It is certainly clever marketing on the part of McDonald’s to use popular toy characters to promote their meals. To the extent that I do wonder whether kids, or even adults, go there for the meals or the toys? Consider my toddler. The only food that he will eat from McDonald’s are fries and chocolate sundaes. Feed him a nugget and he will tell me that it’s “Not nice!” Well, I don’t think I can blame him because the nuggets do taste like cardboard in a way. Give him a burger and after a few small bites, he will rather go back to the fries.

But no matter how the food tastes like, he can identify the golden arches from far away. And I think he has learned to associate McDonald’s with food AND toys.

I’m sure all of your kids know what McDonald’s sells. The question is, do they bug you to take them there each weekend and expect a toy from each outing?

I have discovered that people tend to have less time to blog during the weekends judging by my readership trends. So, I’m thinking that perhaps, one of the simple ways to increase traffic to my blog is to give my readers an idea of what to expect each weekend with a really short post.

Therefore, I have decided to give The Weekend Q a try. A yes or no question each weekend for my readers to debate on. Nothing too hard, I hope. After all, it’s the weekend and the brain shouldn’t be working too hard. 

On to this weekend’s question:

Generally, do you think men are as good as women when it comes to changing nappies and taking care of the kids?

There has been much research done on the effects of sex and violence on TV on children. I don’t claim to know what the experts’ findings are but currently, I’m certainly witnessing how my young son is imitating those scenes he watches on TV.

In Hong Kong, one gets to watch all sorts of drama series during the prime times at night from those kung fu costume dramas to love stories. I think my son was probably exposed to those cops and robbers TV series because he now knows how to run around the apartment with a gun-like toy shouting “Action! Action!”, just like how it is portrayed in the shows.

I suppose it is a pretty harmless imitation but at the same time, I don’t think he comprehends what he actually sees on TV at 2.5 years old. Does he understand that it is only a show or am I under-estimating him here?

At the moment, I switch channels when it comes to certain shows like wrestling with all the blood and “real” violence, but with so many undesirable elements in today’s TV programs (including foul language), I don’t think I can be controlling everything that he is being exposed to. After all, even cartoons nowadays can be pretty violent. I guess it is up to me to drum it into his head that it is only a show and don’t imitate, but I don’t think I would really know what is going on in his head.

Now what I want to know is, do you really see a need to control what your kids watch over TV? And by the way, do you think Tom and Jerry is violent? I just love watching how one always wanting to beat up the other when I was young!

Do you still remember those manual typewriters? Those that does not allow you to do editing without having to re-type the whole document? You might think nobody uses one anymore but if you want to buy a typewriter these days, it can still costs you about US$100 for one of these machines.

Anyway, my dad used to have an Olivetti typewriter when I was still a little girl. I remember that whenever a festival approaches such as Christmas, he would take out his trusted typewriter and start typing out all the addresses on the envelopes before mailing out those greeting cards. Those days, everyone received cards from friends and relatives through the mail and I think I was still receiving quite a few of them while I was at university about 15 years ago.

But now, I don’t have a single actual greeting card to show. I don’t send them anymore and neither do I receive one in return. All the greetings that I have sent and received for the last few years are e-greetings. If I’m already of the new generation, I really think that when my son is older he will probably feels it is silly that people used to mail off greeting cards. And the only typewriter he will get to see is probably at the museum.

So, tell me, are you still sending off gretting cards the old-fashion way or are you sending them by turning on the computer instead?

Welcome to MDC!

As I have just started this site, I’m still in the process of tweaking with the sidebar and the general appearance of the blog. I have spent a lot of time looking at themes but it’s hard to actually find one that I like. Anyway, if you have a bit of time, let me have your opinion of the current look.

Also, it is such a chore to start all over again and as you can see, I have yet to even create my blogroll. To make my job easier, I would appreciate it very much if my readers can do the following:

1. Please leave your blog address on the comment section and I’ll add you onto my blogroll. If you could update yours to include this new blog of mine, I would be grateful.
2. If you have faved my old blog at Technorati, I also hope that you can fav this one. If you have not done so before, I hope you will fav me anyway. I’ll make sure I fav you in return if you can leave your Technorati link in your comments.
3. Lastly, I would be thankful if you can continue to subscribe to my feeds for this new blog.

Before I sign off this post, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my readers!