Faith: Kids today know their logos

Religion columnist

Almost every child knows the jingly “Alphabet Song” even before they start school. My two-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter, Genavecia, already knows that song. Kids know their ABCs. As I recently discovered, though, they also know their logos, sometimes even better than their ABCs.

When my hijada (Goddaughter), Stephanie, was a pre-schooler learning her ABCs, when she saw the letter “M,” she excitedly exclaimed, “McDonald’s!” That was a classic moment in my memory.

Fast forward about 15 years to now. Last weekend, my daughter, Laura, was helping me decorate my classroom bulletin boards. My grandchildren were with us, too, drawing pictures on colored paper on the floor where I also had all of my punch out letters that I was going to put on the bulletin board. Suddenly, Giovanni holds up an empty page of punched out letters and exclaims, “Look, grandma, Facebook!” I looked and it was a cutout of the letter “F.” I laughed so hard. It was another classic moment and it drove home the point to me how much younger our children are becoming logo conscious.

Giovanni, and even Gena, know how to navigate their way to and through several applications and games on my daughter’s cell phones.

My guess is that many youngsters today may mistake a simple curvy check mark for a Nike logo and a bitten apple is Mac or iPhone.

Gio started kindergarten this past week, so he is barely learning how to read. As a test though, I pulled up some logos on my computer and asked Gio to tell me what they were. The first one was just letters, but he knew it right away. It was the Legos red, yellow and white logo. Of course he recognized the big circle ears as Disney Channel or Mickey Mouse. And then I showed Gio a photo of the red bullseye logo and I asked Gio what they represented. Gio immediately blurted, “That means Target, where they have a lot of toys.” And then I showed him a blue and white logo with a yellow light burst and Gio says, “Wal-Mart!”

I was relieved when I showed him an outline of a cross, Jesus and a church and he recognized them, but when I showed him a set of praying hands, at first he said they were clapping.

Helena Rodriguez is a Portales native. Contact her at: [email protected]