Those 70s Cartoons and Child Abuse

There’s a thing going on this weekend on Facebook where people are changing their profile pics to a 70s cartoon of their choice to raise awareness against child abuse. It’s an admirable thing, but there’s also a downside.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5P8lrgBtcU&fs=1&hl=en_US]

I did bite, though. Here’s what I am for the weekend:

When I was in the hospital six weeks at a time for Crohn’s Disease, Tom and Jerry was a welcome distraction. I used to love watching Tom get the shit knocked out of him. It was a great release of aggression for a 9-year-old. It was before I had heavy metal music to do that.

I was a big fan of Super Friends, too. I watched it mainly because I was a big Superman fan. I never liked the Wonder Twins, though. I always wanted them to die horrible, gory deaths.

I wasn’t all there when I was a kid. Come to think of it, I’m not all there now.

So this campaign is all about child abuse awareness. Here’s what people are posting on their walls:

All children deserve happy childhood memories, RAISE AWARENESS: Change your FB picture to a cartoon from your childhood. The goal? To not see a human face on facebook until Monday the 6th of Dec. Join the fight against child abuse, and invite your friends to do the same.

It raised my awareness, all right. In the 70s and 80s, I saw plenty of child abuse in my house. Not from my father or step-parents, but from my mother. She had a hard life so I don’t hold it against her. I forgave her long ago. But the memories still suck. My sister got it the worst. Between that, a bitter divorce, illness and death, I don’t exactly consider that period a happy childhood.

I’m pretty happy today, so maybe I should start a more contemporary campaign with modern cartoons like one of my current favorites, “Phineas and Ferb.” I love snuggling up with the kids and watching that one.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQsmupllGEs&fs=1&hl=en_US]

To me, the happy memories are being made right now.

But I’m going to go along with the childhood cartoon thing anyway. Billy Joel once sang that “the good old days weren’t always good and tomorrow aint as bad as it seems.”

As a kid I used to think my parents lived in a world that looked a lot like that movie “Pleasantville.” Everything was clean and pretty. Nobody fought. Every day was Christmas.

I know that wasn’t true for my mother. My father tells me the 50s and 60s kind of sucked for him. He was overweight and kids made fun of him.

But that didn’t stop me from wanting to live in their past. Surely, it had to be better than the present I was living.

A lot of kids probably look at the 70s and 80s the same way.

So, if putting up pictures from old cartoons is going to make them happy, I’ll do my part.