I Claudius

I am watching at old PBS miniseries called I Claudius. It's about Rome during and after the reign of Augustus (1st emporer). Oh the intrigues, betrayals and violence of the imperial family! They were one bunch of egomaniacal looneys. (at least in the show, I suppose I need to read a real history of the time to find out what really happened).

But I thought watching a historical miniseries with the (older) kids would be educational. But the issues that are explored in the show are too much! Can you say "inappropriate"? Murder (that's the least of it), suicide, incest, adultery, prostitution, infanticide, patricide,....yech!

I had to skip the episodes on Caligula because that dude was sicko! I don't feel like explaining to Rosie some of the stuff he did. It's too much!

So I thought I'd watch a nice PG movie about the story of Esther (from the bible) with all the kids. Bad idea. As simplistic as it was, I realized that MiniMe was probably not ready for stories involving eunuchs, guys being hanged, and a king who spends one night with hundreds of beautiful virgins. She kept asking, "Is that a good guy or a bad guy?" and "Is he on the good team? or the bad team?" Ambiguous characters she can not fathom.

It made me remember that she is at the age where one of the most pressing issues is good and bad. She is driven to try understand what is good and what is bad. She needs to be watching Veggie Tales and Shirley Temple movies. Any more sophistication is confusing to her.

Sigh. It is very challenging to find movies that will entertain and be appropriate for a 5, 9 and 12 year old (not to mention me!). I can't make MiniMe go to bed at 7pm forever. Nor shuffle her off to the other room to watch a movie by herself.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, here I come. Again. Sigh.

Any other great ideas?