📝 The Purple Dinosaur and the Man With the Sword
Published Thursday, July 09, 2026 at 09:22 AM PT I. Two Theories of the Child There is a question that sits underneath all children’s television, and almost nobody asks it out loud, because asking it out loud makes everyone uncomfortable. The question is: what is a child? Not biologically. Nobody disputes the biology. The question is what a child is in the sense that matters to a person about to spend twenty-two minutes of that child’s brief, irreplaceable life talking directly into their face. Is a child a thing that needs to be reassured, or a thing that needs to be armed? Is childhood a garden or a training ground? Do you meet a four-year-old where they are, or do you show them where they’re going? ...