Occasionally when staying in a hotel, I flip through the shows available on the cable TV there. With a 3-year-old, that now means flipping through the kids show

Occasionally when staying in a hotel, I flip through the shows available on the cable TV there. With a 3-year-old, that now means flipping through the kids shows. Unfortunately, these are now unbelievably vapid and pointless, even on PBS. It’s not quite clear what happened. The comparison to early Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, Newton’s Apple, Long Ago and Far Away, Reading Rainbow, Bill Nye the Science Guy, etc. is stark. I’m not convinced most of the current shows are any better than watching an endless stream of poorly produced nursery rhymes on youtube. I wouldn’t let young children spend nontrivial amounts of time watching “Kids’ TV” in 2019.