🚀 go-pugleaf

Bradley Richards (bradley@ai-lab.fh-furtwangen.de) wrote:
(snipped my post)

: Thanks--glad you liked my post. And no, I don't entirely blame the parents--I 
: think what we have is a societal problem, where many parents have simply been 
: carried along. Don't-care parenting, too much television, discipline 
: problems--I think these are all different effects of the same causes; causes 
: that are complex and have been developing at least since the end of WW2.

: Having a small child (18 months), I am beginning to see how easy it is to give 
: in. Not too long ago, our son accidentally discovered the TV-remote. It was 
: probably the first time the TV had been on in a couple of months... In any 
: case, he was so fascinated that he just flipped channels and stared for hours 
: on end. And, as it happened, my wife and I had lots to do at the time, so we 
: let him. I don't suppose any harm came of it--but it was suddenly easy to see 
: giving in the next day, and the next, and the next... The TV would make a an 
: easy baby-sitter.

: The last statistic I saw for the US said that the average child watched 
: television 45 hours per week! And I rather doubt that much of that is PBS.

When my children were smaller (they're all teenagers now), they spent entirely
too much time at babysitters' houses watching television. I married an "instant
family" with children five, seven and ten, and their mom had been married to
three deadbeats before me, so she'd always had to work.  We weren't rich
enough for my wife not to work, nor could we afford quality daycare (the
kind where the children are actually _doing something_) so our children sat
on the floor of their babysitter's trailer house, watched her smoke and chat
with the neighbors, and watched television. By the time I realized just how
_bad_ that was (I did not grow up with television, thank God and my parents!),
they had all put in about three more years in front of the tube, and to this
day, they all show the signs of TV blight: short attention span, use of a
term with which I was not familiar as a child ("bored"), elevated violent
tendencies, adherence to a single point of view on any topic, you name it,
etc, etc. My wife and I love documentaries, but the "b" word (see above)
rears its ugly head when the kids see us tuning one in. 

: So I do agree with you: it cannot be healthy for children to watch hours and 
: hours of television. And the parents are not solely to blame for their 
: children's problems--there is lousy programming on TV, there are lousy 
: role-models for children (Nixon or Clinton or both, according to one's 
: political persuasions), the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting 
: poorer, and on and on.

And, to paraphrase my own posting, those out to "get" Clinton probably owe
at least some allegiance to those who were out to "get" Nixon, whom he
perceived perhaps even before they _were_, and inadvertently helped them
"get" him. If Bill Clinton is a student of history, he will be wise to
pay attention to that point. 

As far as the divergence of the rich and poor in this country, I believe 
that the seeds were sown as far back as the 'fifties and sixties, when the
constantly rising standard of living lulled people in this country into a
false sense of security, and both working people (most visibly in the form
of unions) and management (most visibly in the outrageously large paychecks
paid to do-nothing CEOs) became addicted to higher wages for little change
in output. The 'eighties were the catalyst, when the creation of "new"
money was replaced by its redistribution from the workers (most especially
the lower- and middle-management ranks) to either CEOs (for keeping the
company in the hands of the shareholders) or "outside" people (who bought
entire companies with borrowed money, with the only visible motive to take
a piece of the value of the company then run.

So our children ask, "What kind of a world will I grow up in?" I can only
reply, "One with thousands of McJobs for each CEO job." What they see on
TV doesn't tell them I'm wrong.

: But parents *are* the people who can effect positive changes in the lives of 
: their children. In this sense, parents do stand center-stage--not as the 
: problem, but as the potential solution to the problem.

AMEN. AMEN. AMEN. Now, in this day and age of "blended families" where the
traditional meaning of "Mom" and "Dad" are blurred by the multiplicity of
each figure, how do we re-establish lines of authority, respect and a
sense of what a "family" is, or should be? Not to complain too vociferously,
but sometimes my schemes to direct our children fall like a house of cards
with the obiquitous "YOU'RE NOT MY REAL FATHER, I DON'T HAVE TO DO WHAT
YOU SAY" (shouting intended). My wife was widowed; how can I compete with
a dead silent partner? (No answer expected)

: Cheers,

: Bradley

: -----------------------------------------------------------------------
: Bradley L. Richards, AI Lab, Fachhochschule Furtwangen, D-78120 Germany
: http://www.ai-lab.fh-furtwangen.de:80/~bradley/
: bradley@ai-lab.fh-furtwangen.de

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