A Day at the Museum

Parents weary of the massive spending and consumerist urges that often accompany trips to the mall can take heart from the knowledge that there are alternatives to these temples to hedonism that don't involve getting baked under the sun or otherwise enduring a hopelessly muggy day. In Manila alone there are plenty of alternatives to be found, all of which boast air-conditioning.

The National Museum located in the old Senate building in Lawton, Manila is one such attraction. Home to one of our most cherished cultural artifacts, Juan Luna's seminal painting Spoliarium, the museum remains reasonably well-kept, most of its galleries being air-conditioned, clean and, to my slight surprise, updated. There's even a touch of interactivity, with one gallery featuring a little sketchbook where guests can sign or even doodle, to leave future visitors something to remember them by. It's a great place to walk around, though disappointingly enough, there don't appear to be any places to sit within the galleries. Those looking to introduce their children to Philippine art will definitely find what they're looking for here. I'd say, depending on the child's age (which should probably no less than five or six years of age), the parent can spend anywhere from one to three hours here, and for the measly cost of 70 per adult and 30 pesos per child.

The new wing of the National Museum is less about art and more about artifacts (though there's still a smattering of paintings here and there), and in that respect it certainly ups the ante in terms of presentation such as lighting and display. There are, I'm pleased to report, places to sit here, and there are a couple of interactive aspects as well, like the digital "musical instruments" section that allows the visitor to "play" musical instruments from different parts of the country which appear on a screen, and a large globe with a lights display to show the trade routes to and from the Philippines over three eras. A visit to both the old and the new wings means a little bit of savings as well; it'd be nice to be able to just pay a lump sum for the two building tour but unfortunately it doesn't quite work that way. Visitors to the old wing should make it a point to keep their receipts and present them when going to the new one, and presumably vice-versa.

For kids though, easily the best and most interactive place to go would be the Museo Pambata located right along the Roxas Boulevard, between the U.S. Embassy and Luneta Park, which, as the name suggests, is tailor-made for kids of all ages. Almost EVERYthing in the museum is interactive and each floor is chock full of activities and other curiosities in which they may partake. On certain days, as I understand it, there are storytelling sessions held in an adjacent buildings, so that can certainly be part of the itinerary. Now I went to this place some months (or was it a year?) ago with kids whose ages ranged from five to twelve and we spent nearly three hours there, which they enjoyed so much that by the time we left they weren't quite ready to go yet. And Apel keeps asking me when we're going to go back.

In a nutshell, the mall is not the only air-conditioned cure to your children's boredom. Not only that; the museums offer them a lot more than an afternoon spent looking at toys or playing video games ever will.

So What Should Kids Be Able to Watch Anyway?

My son Apel, about a month ago, was peeved by the fact that his classmates had seen The Incredible Hulk and The Dark Knight while he had not. After letting him watch the somewhat violent Iron Man, I figured that I had to go easy on the PG-13 movies thereafter, especially considering that Hulk and Knight kicked up the violence and darkness quotient quite a bit from the relatively "light" Iron Man, the lead character of which blew up terrorists with impunity, all things considered. Since then he and his sister Tala have watched the decidedly more kid-friendly Kung Fu Panda and WALL-E, both perfectly safe kid's fare.

Now, as my daughter is all of three-and-a-half years old and is not particularly keen on superhero or action movies anyway, she's not so much a question mark as my son who is six and will, next year, be seven, is.

By the time I was his age, I had seen Luke Skywalker's hand chopped off by Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back, a de-powered Superman get beaten bloody in Superman II, and all but the most gruesome violence in Raiders of the Lost Ark (my parents covered my eyes during the part where the Nazis were melted by the Ark of the Covenant's awesome power). The last time I checked, I'm not what one would consider a homicidal maniac.

I've skimmed through some internet sites on what's "developmentally appropriate" for children of my son's age and get varying results, though gratuitous sex and violence are obviously red flags all around. Violence, though, is a little more of an enigma as it's sometimes hard to draw the line between acceptable "cartoon" violence and the more serious kind. Arguably, "cartoon" violence is even worse because it doesn't illustrate for the child how bad the effects of violence can be on a person. I read somewhere how the Home Alone movies are worse for children than a lot of action movies because of the sheer amount of brutality to which the child protagonist subjects his adversaries.

And then there's the question of language, which now involves Tala because a lot of the shows she watches on TV when we're not around are not as easy to police as the movies she gets to watch, which we control. We don't like hearing our kids say "stupid," or "moron" or "idiot" in addition to all of the other, more traditionally abhorred, four-letter swear words, but unfortunately they're integrated into the dialogue of a lot of the shows they like to watch, like Spongebob Squarepants and a host of other shows on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. Tala loves Disney movies so we expose her to a lot of those (her favorites thus far being Cinderella, and Lady and the Tramp).

I'm glad my kids are into lots of other things besides rotting their brains in front of a TV, but I accept that every now and then they can watch. The problem is that policing what they do watch can be pretty tricky, especially as I haven't figured out how to lock channels.