Bad Robots

My husband G. Grod is a Philadelphia Eagles fan. Every season since Drake was born, G. has tried to watch the games and create an early father/son ritual. Unfortunately, Drake has never been on board with this plan. During his first season (he was weeks old), Drake slept through most of the games. During his second season (1+yo) he didn’t look at the screen at all, and ran around the basement, getting into dangerous items. During his third season (2+yo), he would watch a few plays, then get up, run around, and be distracting. And in this fourth season (3+yo) he would watch the TV, but be bored during the game, and fixate on the commercials. Progress has been slow, and not encouraging.

One commercial in particular got his attention, Dodge “Street” with rock-em, sock-em robots. Drake got upset at the violent robots, even when G. Grod explained that no one was in the truck, and the robot didn’t hurt the truck. Drake continued to talk about the commercial and the “bad robots” in a tremulous voice. It was in heavy rotation, so eventually, he was watching a game, the commercial came on, and no one was near the remote to pause or mute it. I heard his shrieks of fear from across the house. I spent some time calming him down.

This has now been weeks ago, and we still occasionally hear about bad robots. Something will remind Drake of it and he’ll become upset, or he’ll wake from a nightmare about them. We’ve been trying to invent examples of good robots.

In spite of individual hatred and a nomination for worst commercial, I’m sure the commercial will air during the Super Bowl, so Drake won’t be watching. I hope that the next several months will bring a bit of critical understanding so that he can like the game, and ignore the commercials.

Also, I’m not going to buy a car from a company that makes a violent commercial that frightens my 3yo and gives him nightmares. Nice one, Dodge.

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