Did 'Sesame Street' Ruin Generation X, or Save It?

New York Times TV writer Virginia Heffernan, there is a warning on the new "Sesame Street: Old School" DVD that reads, "These early 'Sesame Street' episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today's preschool child."

Baffled, Heffernan writes:
At a recent all-ages home screening, a hush fell over the room. "What did they do to us?" asked one Gen-X mother of two, finally. The show rolled, and the sweet trauma came flooding back. What they did to us was hard-core. Man, was that scene rough. The masonry on the dingy brownstone at 123 Sesame Street, where the closeted Ernie and Bert shared a dismal basement apartment, was deteriorating. Cookie Monster was on a fast track to diabetes. Oscar's depression was untreated. Prozacky Elmo didn't exist.

It brings up an interesting question: Were those of us who grew up in a time before organic snacks and mandatory car seats and Abby Cadabby really at a disadvantage? Heffernan suggests that over-protected kids today could learn a little something from old-school Sesame Street:

The harshness of existence was a given, and no one was proposing that numbers and letters would lead you "out" of your inner city to Elysian suburbs. Instead, "Sesame Street" suggested that learning might merely make our days more bearable, more interesting, funnier.We're with her. Kids today are often presented by kids' programming with a misleading "everyone wins!" version of reality. They could stand a little more misanthropic Oscar, a little less "Prozacky Elmo."

As much as I love my Elmo, I do totally agree with this article I read online this morning. Seriously I think that my kids will grow up in a "everyone wins" world and that is so not true. I grew up on Sesame Street and so will my kids. There are still episodes where they learn right from wrong. That Telly can't be the king and tell everyone what to do, no one like a bossy person. Just like everyone tries to tell Oscar that he needs to be nice, well some people are just meaner then others. It's a good reality check at a young age.

I know I have noticed that Cookie Monster has been caring around fruit in his lunch box, but in his episodes on TV he still eats all the cookies, and everything else. It is good to teach kids that fruit and veggies are good, cookies won't kill you. I believe it's just parents that are lazy to blame media for what there kids want.

Teach your child what is right and wrong. Sesame Street does a great job, I am Gen X and damn proud of how I turned out.