AIBU to despair about basically all baby toys and books?

[BestZebbie]

I suspect IABU but this has just stuck out like a sore thumb today - why are seemingly all baby toys and books totally unrealistic in their depictions of pretty much everything? Not just simplified, but actively inaccurate, often in actually quite a dangerous or negative way.

For example, today:

• We read a book about a tiger, a lion and a crocodile who are lovely friendly animals who just want to play with you and give out hugs. Incidentally they all lived in a 'jungle' with a polar bear and a kangaroo.
• We read a book about some dinosaurs, most of which weren't even actually dinosaurs at all, and very very few of which lived even slightly at the same time.
• We sang some lovely traditional nursery rhymes from a CD that covered poor-shaming, mockery of other peoples, fear of spiders (not tigers or crocodiles!) and finally that if you find an old man who doesn't say his prayers you should throw him down the stairs!
• We did a puzzle showing some lovely happy clean farm animals free ranging together in a beautiful sunny farmyard with their babies next to them, smiling, which is definitely how food is produced.

etc etc

Do you think you might be overthinking this a teeny bit? Babies don't really understand what you're saying anyway, they just like to hear the sound of your voice.

Read them an encyclopaedia if you want but it won't make much of a difference!

Yeah you're mostly BU, though admittedly books where animals appearing together in the same habitat where in RL they'd be continents apart (eg lions and tigers) are a pet peeve of mine.

I wouldn't worry OP - just read them some original Grimms Fairy Tales, that'll surely redress the balance

If you can't live in a fairy tale when you are 1 then when can you

I dont believe all those friends really like Elmer at all

It's your first baby, isn't it?

I know, it's shocking. There's some so called classic about a tiger who comes to tea when it's well known they only do brunch.

YANBU! I grew up believing that I could attach seagulls to an enormous peach and fly off into the sunset with a giant caterpillar, it cost me all my friends and financially ruined me. I lost my job and now I have to live in a giant shoe with my hoards of dc, except I can't because they don't make shoes that big!! FFS!!

Yes, it is my first, how could you tell?

Tondelayo: you are so right about that tiger!

Many traditional nursery rhymes have their origins in some unsavoury adult themes. Jack & jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. My arse did they sneak off together just to visit the well. A well on a hill? A likely story.

why worry about it ? the fact is that you are doing stuff with your kids and spending quality time with them, that's what matters. GIRL, love the comment ! i'd rather read about friendly animals to a young child and the fairy tale stuff. shove the p.c rubbish and just enjoy yourselves, your little one is hardly going to be worried about a polar bear living in the jungle. is this your first child ? i don't mean to be rude but it seems that a lot of new parents to this 'worrying and fretting' stuff, when they get to the 2nd and 3rd child, they loosen up and relax more.

Well apparently my local zoo won't send us a selection of random wild animals to see if any of them are suitable for a pet for DS either. I was shocked! YANBU.

Don't watch Igam Ogam.
Dinosaurs and people.

Lonny - I hate Dear Zoo. I always make the animals female, but can't change it to 'Dear Mail Order Pet Shop' or sort out the delivery fee.

It isn't so much that I'm worried that my PFB will actually get eaten by a tiger because they go up and try to hug one in later life, but why teach them a load of stuff that is just inaccurate in the first place? Surely it would be exactly as easy to make things in which polar bears don't live in the jungle as it is to produce things where they do - all this means is that at some point everyone has to unlearn the stuff they spent the first years of their life learning, or grow up misinformed.

What about Peppa pig and friends? TALKING ANIMALS! And foxes and rabbits who are FRIENDS! Talk about confusing children!

OP - have you heard of "imagination"? It's where you can make anything happen. Apparently authors are quite fond of it.

I think OP is being LIGHT HEARTED people.

God. I'm so tired of MN when I read replies like the majority here.

Erm. I think you'll find most of the replies are LIGHTHEARTED, too.

how old is your dc ? probably won't remember much before the age of 3 as they get older, so there will not be much to 'unlearn 'so to speak, they will learn the correct things at play group and school, i don't think many people really believe that polar bears live in the jungle and the like, tbh.

I get so tired of people on MN saying that they are so tired of MN.

My favorite children book is about a giraffe who could dance DANCE!

people who are tired should go to bed ..zzzzzzzz

Have you ever read the elephant and the bad baby ? It's bloody harsh. My Dts love it, but when I read it I leave the bad bit out and just read it as the elephant and the baby. They're 4 I also think dear zoo sets a bad example, a lion is for life damn it.

only once he found music that he loved