Horsey's VS. Aliens

I have a parenting conundrum. It's a tough call, no doubt. One of those gray area's where there seems to be no right and no wrong.

Little Hoss wants to watch the Horsey movie for the umpteenth time and I don't want to. I want to destroy alien invaders and the tweens that control them on Xbox Live.

I know you agree, it's a tough call.

On one hand, to much T.V. is not good for kids. It rots their brains, makes them stupid and convinces them to chew on power cords. It's true, I've seen the research.

However, having them stumble upon the gruesome carnage that I'm unleashing upon the online gaming world can't be good either. One sight of my guy chain sawing some poor schmucks spine in half could have some psychological consequences, even if the Aliens did start it first. Don't start nothing, there won't be nothing.

But I got to tell you, I can't take the stupid Horsey movie again. I'm starting to dream about them and all their Horsey friends. Look, we get it, sharing and teamwork is good.

And it's not like you can't learn teamwork from my fighting alien invaders. In fact, that's the first thing you learn in the invasion. Either stick together and take cover or they'll pick you off one by one.

The Horsey movie does have some good qualities though. It has bright colors and in my parenting handbook that translates into encouraging creativity. Bright colors good, repetitive story line repeated in 30 minute episodes, not good.

And battling alien invaders on line also has some good things. Most of the guys that I'm playing against are actually college stoners. I can point to them and say to Little Hoss "See honey, don't do drugs. If you do drugs Daddy is going to have to find your dealer and curb stomp him." And you know these guys will never graduate. They'll just eat Funions and drink Mountain Dew.

But in the Horsey movie they run around fields of flowers and talk about friendship. In the alien destroying game they drop the f-bomb and rip off limbs. I've read about the connection between video game violence and real world behavior. That's not good and we should probably put the cat out for a little while just to be safe.

The Horseys hug each other.
The Aliens hug huge limb tearing guns
The Horseys make me want to jamb both thumbs in my eyes.
The Alien game will probably encourage Little Hoss to jamb both of her thumbs in my eyes.
The Horsey's do ballet.
Aliens crump.
The Horseys work toward a common goal, setting good examples along the way.
The Alien game allows me to be the hero thus confirming my kickass awesomeness in my daughter's eyes.

So what kind of King Solomen wisdom can I use to rectify this situation? What logic or reasoning prevails? Is there a workable solution?

Of course there is. Turn it all off and go snuggle on the couch while falling asleep watching football.