My little girl is in a full blown toddler stage. She is so incredibly active, yet needs to be near me at all times. Usually she can be found pulling on my pant leg while I’m trying to get a meal together in the kitchen. If she is not there, she is climbing on the couch, crawling across the length of it as fast as she can, then climbing down, and begins again.

After an afternoon of running errands, I sat her down, turned on Netflix kids as a feeble attempt to distract her from the couch relay as I warmed up her milk. I decided to try something different because I would be so sad and really out of luck if she burnt out on her favorite bud, Elmo.

So I picked Color Crew. From a quick glance, it looked like a cute show about animated crayons teaching about colors...seemed harmless enough. We watched a scene that went something like this: A special hat picked out the color of the day, Green, and a buddy, Blue. They got to move on from the crayon box with all their friends to color in a coloring sheet backdrop. Green got to work and colored in the tree tops and the grass, but then, Green got a little too creative and colored the sky green. Uh oh! Big mistake. Blue called for Eraser and this white, male eraser smugly erased all the green out of the sky so Blue could return it to it's "rightful" color.

Wait! What?!? Did this cartoon just say that the sky has to be blue? I quickly realized what troubled me even more was that this show just singlehandedly set limits on her own creativity and conveyed that she will be corrected for not abiding by the way things are supposed to be.

The writers of this show, designed for babies nonetheless, just told a very powerful story. Sadly, it is a story that is repeated time and time again. And here it was, being told to my little toddler on a baby channel! Before she can speak, before she is steady on her feet, she had limits placed on her. She was told that the sky can’t be green (btw, have you seen the sky right before a tornado?). She was told that she needs to stay in the lines. She was told she would be shamed for trying something different than the status quo. She was told that authority looks like the eraser; white, older and male.

Stories have power and I often wonder if we give them the credit they deserve. I, too, was told the same story, but thankfully, I was also told a better story. She will be told a better story. While I know she will hear tales like the one above, I hope it will be out of caution and not celebration or matter-of-fact. So, here’s to telling better stories!

After all, the sky isn’t always blue.