To think kids media should ease up on the representations of snow

[someladdersandsnakes]

Trying to be lighthearted here but this is bugging me
CBeebies has wall-to-wall snow right now, in all the Christmas episodes and in-between segments, anything to do with Christmas or winter = SNOW SNOW SNOW
Except for Bluey which represents Australian December accurately.
Also books from the library, British ones, it's snowing at Christmas and anything about the seasons is like "in winter it snows bla bla bla"
Well my DD has never seen snow in all of her 5 years and she asks every day when it's going to start snowing, and getting disappointed that it isn't snowing yet.
AIBU to want to see Christmas or winter represented without snow occasionally so it's accurate to our actual lives?

My 27 yr old was claiming it used to snow more…

It’s the unpredictability that makes it so memorable.

Snow is an occasional part of most people’s lives in the U.K. but usually not at Christmas, more often in January or February. Ducks are everywhere aren’t they? When we lived in a city there was a duck pond, they were in the river when we lived in the country and now we live by the sea and there are Eider ducks bobbing about most of the time. You can’t expect children’s TV and books to be based on what you can see from your window.

You must live in a niche micro climate. We’ve had deep snow all weekend and do most years, We have several lakes within walking distance that my children visited daily to see the ducks when they were small. They also regularly see seagulls as we are five miles from the coast. All in England.

You think that CBBCs need to take into account children who haven't seen snow and duck in their programming? Why? Can't you just explain to your child what they are? I'm utterly baffled, why on earth would this negatively impact your child?

No snow and no ducks? 😁 What??

You are quite right about the lack of gull representation. They should be as omnipresent are they are in life.

Because we all know...Who run the world? Gulls.

I recommend the Lighthouse Keeper series of books for seagull content at that age! My kids loved them.
I remember it snowed at Christmas 2010 when my eldest was a baby. I took lots of pictures of him well wrapped up out in the snow as I suspected it might be the only white Christmas of his childhood, as indeed seems to have been the case! We did have a great week of snow last December and it was lovely to do Christmassy things in the snow for once. But all gone by Christmas

I don't think representation in children's books/ media has to always be accurate in the same way it doesn't always have to be inclusive.
It's good that sometimes kids see things that represent real life, and other times an imagination of what we would like to see or experience one day.

Some kids have never been to the beach, others have never experienced proper snow. Others won't have played in forests or rivers. It won't do them any harm to see that they haven't experienced everything.

Mine haven't experienced lots of things that others take for granted due to multiple factors, but predominantly where we live.

We were queuing at a free fair for children on Saturday when it started snowing. My GC choir was singing so we had to stay. It looks magical in the American movies, in RL it's shit.

Last year it was snowing when we left Liverpool to discover that snow doesn't stick in Blackpool because of all the salt in the air. If you have to go out and about, no snow is better. Many of us live in roads that deliveries can't go down once there's a hint of ice.

Wait, what? There are no ducks where you live? That’s thrown me!

We visit Yorkshire seaside towns a few times a year and there are definitely ducks there. I thought they were everywhere.

Excellent

Snow is very rare here thank goodness , but plenty of ducks, swans and geese on the river, and despite being 40 miles from the coast a good few seagulls (generally hanging round shopping precinct carparks).

I live in the forgotten bit of Cornwall. DS age 12 has built one snowman, been sent home from school once for a mini blizzard and never been sledging here. We have to drive to Dartmoor or Kit Hill for proper snow when it does actually snow. Seagulls...the bane of our lives. Ducks live at Mt Edgcumbe on their pond. 😂

OP lives on the South Coast not in Yorkshire

Does it really matter that much in the scheme of things? It's a easy of linking snow to something nice. Otherwise it's just a winter thing. It makes it special when it happens.

I know. My point was that I had assumed there were ducks in all UK seaside towns, based on seeing them on our trips to the seaside which have mainly been in Yorkshire…

Stick on Old Jacks Boat, Balamory and Katie Morag (all memories from when my DCs were little so a decade ago...) All set in seaside villages and with plenty of seagulls!!

You should teach your child about sea ducks. Love an eider duck. They have a nice soft whuuu call rather than a boring quack. Long tailed ducks are easy to identify. Merganser have funny weird teeth.

Love weird winter duck season. Problem is you might need binoculars because they're usually very far away.

How can your child not have seen a duck til she was three? Don't the frequent every local pond?

We're in Cornwall and even we've had snow recently - even by the sea! Snowy beaches are so cool.

No ducks though? - that's just weird.

Topsy and Tim would not approve! 😉

In that case, we need to tell kids that Santa is overrepresented, as are singing mermaids/fairies/princesses who fall asleep and are awoken by kisses (still angry that this did not happen to me)/fat characters who live in a hill with a mad vacuum...

We’re in the SE. No snow here yet this year. We rarely get much. I remember it snowing heavily, for the first time in several years, when ds was 5 and in reception. When he saw the snow he said ‘So it is real, not just in books!’

Where I live there’s been no significant snowfall since the aforementioned beast from the east. Certainly none since I stopped working in 2019. I would like the experience of snow without worrying about getting to work in it! 2010 is the last big snow I remember and it was on the ground at Christmas.

I live in a village between two towns, all on the south coast. We definitely have ducks in all those places!

And snow sometimes. A fully white morning last Saturday. Not enough to play in for about 3 years now but it does happen.

No ducks and no snow? Are you in prison?