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I have recently unearthed a fascinating phenomenon in relation to the nuclear center of a preschooler's life, by which I mean of course, Dora the Explorer.   I had always carefully controlled my son's excessive television watching by limiting it to educational DVD's, such as Baby Einstein or Leapfrog.   I'm sure there are those who would debate the "educational" in the last sentence, but I actually think some of those products do a great job in helping children with the basics of math and reading.  It was partly this belief and partly that I had no idea where preschooler programming was in my 1000+ television channels, that meant Jack was completely unfamiliar with the cartoon characters he was seeing so much of at his friends birthday parties.  That was, until we stumbled across Dora one fateful day in December.

Minutes into Dora, Jack was slack jawed and hooked like a fish who had taken the bait.  I myself didn't quite see the appeal, but I wasn't sure I saw the harm.  Yet.  Until Jack started asking for Dora every 25 seconds, 18 hours a day.  Out of my own boredom with Dora, I tried to tune him into other shows like Blue's Clues or Go Diego Go, but he flatly rejected all non-Dora programming.  The only benefit I saw that was I was secretly pleased that he was enamored with a show with a heroine versus a hero, even after being shown the "boy" version, Diego.

Little did I know that the rest of the mother of boy's world was closing their shutters in horror lest neighbor see that they were unable to convince their young sons to watch Diego over Dora. Recently, a staff member of mine was relaying a story about how he was reprimanded by his wife for buying a Dora birthday card for a young boy's party, and I shared my story about Jack loving Dora and everything Dora-equse but refusing Diego, and frankly, I didn't care.  It's not as if the Dora storyline is about doing facials or putting on lip gloss, so what difference did it make if the lead character is a boy or girl?  Slowly the masses began to emerge from their offices, cubicles or hallway lurking positions.  And like a mass confessional, the parents of sons came forward and expressed relief that they were not alone in "the Dora situation".  Most stated they couldn't wait to get home to tell their spouses that Jack, Mikey and Max, etc. all preferred Dora too.  Who knew Dora would become a stepping stone for social progress?  Vamanos!