YouTube is not for little kids and the reasons we banned it

“Why did you sleep with your sister last night?”

“Because I was scared Slenderman was going to come get me.”

“What the hell is Slenderman and where did you hear about that?”

“I saw it on YouTube.”

Ugh.

I will state emphatically…YouTube is NOT for little kids.

This is not the first time we’ve dealt with the boogeyman from YouTube. For months, 3 of the kids couldn’t shower with the door closed and I had to buy a see-through shower curtain. Thanks, YouTube. As if parenting isn’t hard enough.

I saw a meme floating around the book of faces the other day that talked about how we old moms win because we parented without iPads, or anything on demand. I laughed because at one point in my parenting career I had an entire collection of Elmo VHS videos.

You know what else we didn’t have? YouTube. When it first became a big deal, I remember handing small humans my phone and letting them watch hours of those stupid opening egg videos. It entertained them and let me have a break. Sweet.

The YouTube of today is much different. Even with parental controls and “kids” YouTube, kids are able to come across some pretty terrifying stuff. Which is why we banned it.

It’s not like we need any help in the “scare the shit out of my kid so they won’t sleep for months” department. That’s why they have siblings. The whole shower incident seriously threw me for a loop.

Wanna know what it’s like when you delete YouTube from every device your kids have access to? It goes something like this…

“WHAT???? But what will we WATCH???”

“But there’s practically nothing on Netflix!”

“But…”

There was gnashing of teeth.

For the foreseeable future, at our house, unless you are 14, we are a YouTube free zone. The YouTube boogeyman has no place here.