Strider & The Ewoks

So, my daughter is quickly approaching 3 years old, and while complaining that she doesn't yet like Wolverine and the X-Men (and hoping that our Due Sept son shares my comic book passions) I realized that I have imposed many of my interests and beliefs on her. Am I wrong for doing so?

The picture here is of our most recent family addition, he is now 4months old, a Neo-mastiff, Bull mastiff, staffy cross named.... Strider, this is the name that eventually won out on a list that included such gems as Vlad, Xavier and Hagrid amoung other equally geeky names, some more obvious than others. While at the local video store (what are we supposed to call them now anyway? They clearly no longer stock videos...) We were picking out a selection of Dvds for the week (these included; Warm Bodies, In Time, The Grey, Paranorman, Cloud Atlas, The Rum Diary & One of the various Dora dvds they have available, if you were at all interested, maybe I will write some reviews, maybe not...) when my daughter says "Look Daddy, Strider!", My husband failing to look says "Oh is there a puppy movie is there?", But then catches me doing my little fan-girl giggle.... My darling daughter was pointing to Aragorn/Strider on the cover of LOTR - The Two Towers. Mummy very proud and impressed :D Daddy however while impressed she recognized the character, thinks that I have hammered it into her (if it was something he was interested in, say, Cricket, he would've been over the moon... as it is she already says "Yay, Cricket!")

So anyway, here I am questioning myself, we take our daughter to Armageddon (NZs much smaller equivalent to Comic-con) where we dressed her as an Ewok and had her photo taken with Darth Vader and a Storm Trooper, She has seen most of the Harry Potter series (except for the very scary parts) and occasionally pretends to be Hermione and casts spells on us all, she can identify most LOTR characters (occasionally calling Gandalf, Dumbeldore) including that Mummies one ring replica is either "Frodos Ring" or "The Ring of Power, makes invisible", and knows who Spiderman and Batman are... Is this too much geek culture for such a young formidable mind? Or is it healthy to teach and show our kids what we are passionate about? We certainly don't force anything on her, it just happens to be about, but should we instead clear out our posters & action figures to replace with Mickey Mouse, Barbie and Dora (which by the way she also loves)?

As parents we try to do our duty, she can say the alphabet, identify most letters, count past 20 and almost spell her name. We get complemented on her vocabulary and clarity of speech daily, and she also shows signs of being very musical. Admitadley, she is not the best behaved child (she is mostly toilet trained, but sometimes isn't very happy about using it) she has a wicked temper and can be incredibly bossy, but I guess all toddlers have their days. But is that our fault? Maybe she does watch too much TV... :(

We try to give her well rounded opinions, showing her both sides of things, for example when making Easter baskets I dumbed down the Christian story of Easter and also the Pagan Spring Celebration to versions that a young child could understand. I figure she needed to understand what the Rabbit was all about....

Ohwell, things to think about without answers, will I change my parenting technique with another one on the way, or is the impulse to buy Wolverine T-shirts and costumes too great?