my kids don't need to see this crap!
There we were, just sitting around the couch after dinner, tv on a local station, (we weren't watching anything in particular the tv just happened to be on), kids about doing their thing and WHAMMO! OUT OF THE BLUE!, Tweens!....in their underwear!.....dry humping!....on the tv screen! She in a dark blue bra and low-cut panties, legs wrapped around a handsome square jawed, GQ, Preppy type with ripped, 6-pack abs....moaning!...in ecstasy! Seriously?
I couldn't find the remote quick enough to turn it off before the scene ended. My daughter goes " Whoa! what are they doing?" She didn't need to see that! This was on a Network channel!...during Primetime! When families are usually in the living room!
My jaw dropped to the ground, I look over at Nanci and her eyes were as big as softballs.
"Unbelievable" we said to each other.
How and when did television get so PG-13? and Why? Then I remembered a comment made to me by an old childhood friend I am fortunate enough to reconnect with via Facebook. He posted this comment: " I turn my tv ON when I want to turn my brain OFF" then a few weeks later I made a comment on facebook that I was tired of turning the tv on only to hear about horrible things going on in our world. He responded saying "where you go wrong is to turn that thing on at all, my brother. turn off the streaming corporate propaganda that lies to your children and teaches them to forever want more."
It got me thinking.....you know he's right! My children cant benefit from anything on tv, not the news, not primetime television, not the commercials that teach them to forever want more, not the cartoons that are WAY too violent for them, nothing.
This made me re-think something I have been against for a very long time, video games. I have never been a fan of video games, (wasn't a "gamer" when I was a kid) I vowed they would never enter my home and my kids would never be allowed to have one. I figured they would get enough of it elsewhere, I didn't need to be the one to give it to them.
My kids have played with a Wii, and I will admit it is pretty fun, G-rated fun as a matter of fact, whole family fun, no-need-to-worry-about-half-naked-twentysomethings-interrupting-my-family-night-fun. Besides, my son loves to kick my butt in dodgeball....of course I let him win!
So guess what kids! you're getting a Wii for Christmas! So I can control what you play and see and not the 'streaming corporate propaganda'
What else am I to do with a 50 inch LCD screen now that we don't watch tv?
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Hey Scott the blog looks nice.
ReplyDeleteI’m 58 this year; I have two children who are over 20 now. Looking back I can only say that the television and video games were not a positive element in their lives. Not from an indoctrination stand point, just a waste of time issue and it was a barrier with education. The video games were even worse, the constant stimulation made sitting down to do math or read an article impossible because these tasks take time and move slowly in their minds. My girlfriends son is 6 years younger than my kids and the video game issue has not only been detrimental for him in school but for everyday life issues. Starting and finishing a task outside of the video game world is almost impossible. He can’t deal with it i.e. help us move the lumber from here to there. He picks up one board and then disappears or pulls some attitude number to piss off Mom and then she sends him to his room.
If I had to do it over, TV would be selected programs only that were planned in advance, none of this just turning it on and flipping through the channels. Video games as a family event or maybe ½ hour per day but only after everything else is out of the way. The purchasing agent at the Napa Valley Wine Train is a single mom and is doing just that, she started when he was little and her son is fine with it because it’s all he knows, he hasn’t been immersed in it and now its being taken away.
Now that being said, this will put a lot more pressure on the parents because the kids are going to be coming to you.
One another subject, lets stop micro managing every minute of the kids after school lives, send them out to play with no toys, let them use their imaginations. Remember all the things you could do with a stick. It was a gun (yeah I said a gun, so what), it was a spear, it was a sword, it was something you hit your friend with and pissed him. If they lay on the floor on a nice day and look out the window, great, why, because there is nothing wrong with day dreaming a little, it’s part of the imagination, they are thinking on their own even if its kid stuff.
That’s all………..
It is insidious and sinister. We are pandered and bombarded by degrading images and ideas all the time. TV is best off or on very conservatively.
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