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Must everyone grow up?
All children, except fake ones, grow up.
Fake ones, like Charlie Brown and Richie Rich, don't have to. They can be children forever. I think that's what we like about them. Calvin will always be a 6-year-old boy testing the boundaries of imagination with his stuffed tiger, Hobbes. The Family Circus will always comprise two adults and four children (and PJ will never, ever talk).
In real life, you can't trap someone in childhood, no matter what. Time ultimately catches up: the 13-year-old and 11-year-old I met a few years ago, the ones who went with me and their mom to Busch Gardens to brave the 90-degree drop of Shiekra, they remain 13 and 11 only in memories and photographs.
And fictional characters aren't immune to aging. Arnold and Willis Jackson eventually become Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges. It's inescapable. No one cared much what the Beaver did as an adult, or who the Brady Girls married, or where Zack and Slater went to college. And don't even get me started on what happened to the Little Rascals!
Now Mattel and Nickelodeon want to prepare us for a pre-teen Dora the Explorer. Forget the hysteria of the blogosphere on this one: she's not Dora the Tramp or Dora the Streetwalker. She's a 10-year-old girl now, in a new incarnation that will be available in toy stores this fall.
Sometimes the aging of comic or fictional characters can be delightful. I loved the idea of Peter Pan growing up to become Robin Williams. And it was great watching the kids of For Better Or For Worse go from toddlers to spouses.
So is this new Dora a good idea? I don't know. Some marketing guru somewhere thought it was a good idea. And marketing gurus never make mistakes, do they?
Gretchen Day-Bryant has a son in high school and a daughter in middle school. She’s lived to tell about the struggles of juggling little kids and work...
Joy Oglesby has an infant daughter and a sister 13 years her junior, whom she babies to the now-adult...
Cindy Kent Fort Lauderdale mother of three. Her kids span in ages from teenager to 20s...
Rafael Olmeda and his wife welcomed their first son in Feb. 2009, and he's helping raise two teenage stepdaughters...
Lois Solomon lives in Boca Raton with her husband and three daughters...
Anne Vasquez is the Online Editor in charge of overseeing SunSentinel.com. She is the mother of a 5-year-old boy and a newborn daughter.
Georgia East is the parent of a five-year-old girl, who came into the world weighing 1 pound, 13 ounces...
Brittany Wallman is the mother of Creed, 13, and Lily, 6, and is married...
Chris Tiedje is the Social Media Coordinator, and father of two boys and a girl all under the age of seven.
Comments
I am new to this whole mothering thing and my son doesn't yet watch TV, but I know a bit about this Dora person because my nieces used to like her when they were younger. Now, from what I remember, her name was Dora the EXPLORER. She had a backpack, right, and I'm assuming other accoutrements that help her explore? Now she has.....mascara, jewelry and ballet flats. I'm trying not to be a feminazi boner killer here, but wasn't a lot of the appeal of the character that she wasn't a particularly girly girl? That she liked to solve mysteries or some such? That she was rough and tumble? It seems now that she is a tween she has given up on this because it's more important to look cute? I don't know, I guess I feel like if I was a young girl and loved Dora because she was adventurous and wore a compass watch I'd be a little turned off by this new incarnation.
Posted by: Elita | March 17, 2009 9:19 AM
I agree with Elita on her critique of the character's new gender specification.
Also, For Better Or For Worse is a horrible comic. Absolutely dismal. It was okay in it's early years, but the maturation of the characters did nothing positive.
Finally, what does this mean for Diego? And Swiper and Boots on a lesser level.
Posted by: Jack | March 17, 2009 8:14 PM
Aw, don't go hating on the Pattersons! They just... grew up.
Hmm.
Posted by: Rafael | March 17, 2009 8:23 PM
This new Dora reminds me of my twin sister and I at 10 years old. Very cute.
Posted by: Christy | March 18, 2009 12:50 AM
I like this new Dora. Very cute and think about it, your probably asking "Why are they doing this?" am i right? The answer is simple, they want to keep the original viewers of Dora the Explorer interested. You know the ones that use to watch it but have GROWN UP!!!! And they're still keeping the old show so why the big fuss?
Posted by: Melissa | March 19, 2009 1:50 PM
Hey, more power to them. I just think sometimes it's okay to just outgrow something. When I was growing up, we had Sesame Street, and when we got too old for that, we graduated to The Electric Company (Morgan Freeman was a cast member). We didn't get older Muppets. We just moved on to other things.
Are they going to make a tougher, more carnivorous Barney now?
But you're right: it's not that big a deal. But it is interesting, no?
Posted by: Rafael | March 27, 2009 2:25 PM
I am not opposed to having Dora the Explorer and i have nieces that are her age and they stopped watching it because they grew up and they say that if it were to be on tv with her as a 10 year old they would watch it and they think she is very cute.
Posted by: Peggy | April 6, 2009 10:48 PM