All Too Human for Sesame Street

What is the threshold for human compassion?

I never thought I'd have a child, so I never thought I'd watch Sesame Street ever again. But in the past six years, I've had three children and watched it 9 million times. The episode we've watched the most is from 1978, titled "Naming Barkley," when the whole gang picks a name for that big dumb orange dog. (They named him Barkley.)

When I first rewatche…