By Keith Raynor
My son, Miles, is five years old, and despite many warnings of the dangers of screen time, putting on one of his favorite videos is one of the best ways to get him to sit in one place for an extended period of time. He’s currently fascinated by historical battles, so our rotation of programming includes Civil War reenactments and stage performances of Les Miserables, alongside Phineas & Ferb, My Neighbor Totoro, and of course, Bluey.
One afternoon, I was watching an episode of Bluey with him, this one about some of the side characters that inhabit the titular blue heeler’s colorful world. While Miles crunched his way through a handful of veggie straws, curled up in his grandfather’s lounge chair, Jack (a young Jack Russell Terrier) struggled to keep it together in the back seat of his family’s car as they drove to school.
“Jack, why can’t you just do what you’re told?” asked the pup’s younger sibling. Jack paused, scanning his innermost thoughts for some core reason as to why he forgot instructions in the middle of things and couldn’t control the movements of his body. Finally, with frustration, he replied, “I don’t know.”
And that’s when my eyes started watering.
