Big word to this. I LOVE my iPod–it lets me listen to music wherever I want, making for much more pleasant train rides, plane rides, and runs. I don’t feel the need to get a new video iPod until my iPod stops working (which, as much as I do love mine, they are not known for their long lifespans), but I know people who got a new video iPod… just because. I’m equally puzzled by just about anyone who bought an iPhone opening day: didn’t you have a phone already? Didn’t your phone work well enough? Sure, get an iPhone when you need a new phone, but… you don’t need a new phone now.

My big consumer-guilt thing is that I buy way too many books. One of these days I need to go acquaint myself with the public libraries near me.

Shorter: If you want grownup TV, keep the kids playing outside where they belong!

Maybe in super-safe suburbs, or if you have the time to go with them to a nearby park. But in big cities? I wouldn’t feel comfortable letting my kids play outside in most parts of NYC.

Amanda:Reducing the amount of homework expected for developing children would also help a lot.

Word to this too! Some of the kids I work with have the stupidest homework, homework that is clearly not helping them learn anything. Never mind the fact that the kids who can benefit most from doing work outside of class are often the ones who don’t have someone at home who can help them with homework.

First parents determine what kids eat, and it is imperative that they be provided the healthiest, most nutritious resources available. Teaching them to eat well and they will do so for their own children.

Second, there is an alternative compromise for television, that i used for years with my children, and passed along to my grandchildren. I watched TV with them, and became a loud and vocal critic of all forms of commercialization and consumptive manipulation. I made TV watching something unpleasant for them until they learned to actively and aggressive engage the medium and its powerful but dangerous messages. As a few have pointed above, modern (and post-modern) broadcast media offer a full spectrum of material, some mind-blowingly enriching and some hideous and vile. Teaching children to evaluate and analyze carries over to their peers as well, so that when they are away from home, visiting with families that do not share the same values, your children still think for themselves. My youngest son has grown into a fine young actor, but more so, a masterful critic of the acting he experiences when watching visual media (even to the quality of the performances of commercial/advertising actors). He shares that all the time, which is okay, except when i just want to watch TV. Damn it all comes back to haunt you.

Also, I was never allowed to watch The Simpsons, even in high school. Which goes along with what other folks are talking about — with kids being out of the culture loop, or considered odd by their peers. There’d be class discussions that centered around an episode — invasive species for example — but I’d have NO IDEA what was being discussed.

rowmyboat, are you one of my sisters or something. Because I’d swear we had the same mom.

I was never allowed to watch the Simpsons either. It started on Fox when I was in the sixth or seventh grade and all my friends (and most of their parents) watched it religiously. But because my mom thought Bart was a bratty kid, she wouldn’t have it on in her house (still won’t) and I was never allowed to watch. I used to get made fun of constantly because of that and some of her other oddities, which included the lectur-y comments whenever something even remotely sexual came up in some other show or in a conversation. It was highly embarrassing.

Oddly enough, though, she absolutely loved Married With Children and we were allowed to watch that whenever we wanted. I don’t understand her rationale for that one at all, because MWC was loads worse than the Simpsons ever dreamed of being.

I tend to restrict my kids’ tv watching, but they do get to watch more than I’d strictly like. Mostly they watch PBS in the mornings while we’re getting ready for work and on the weekend mornings so the husband and I can sleep for an extra hour or so. And they get to watch DVDs from the library. I try to keep it as much as possible in the educational realm of shows (except for Scooby Doo–we have the 1st and 2nd seasons of that on disk, the kids love it, and I love the old school ones myself). But, they don’t whine when I tell them that tv time is over and they are usually content to entertain themselves (mostly by fighting and driving me crazy).

If/when/if I have kids, I will do exactly the same: strict limitations on television watching, like, maybe two hours a week tops. But unlimited access to books, books, and more books!

Another thing my parents did that I think was hugely consequential to my and my sister’s development was the active encouragement from an early age to explore creativity in all its forms. Drawing, painting, collage-making, knitting, sewing, music, the list goes on. Also active outdoorsy things; we lived near a very large park and were in a constant kid-pack roaming the place. I think about it now, and I don’t know if parents today would feel comfortable letting their kids roam around unattended in a huge park all day until dusk!

Anyway, looking back on it, I think my parents did a great job of insulating us from the pernicious effects of television and mass-consumption mania. And of course, we were geeky outcasts with none of the right clothes or toys. Once again, at the time I hated it, but now I wear my geek scars with pride and wouldn’t change a single thing.

Anecdata from someone who hated TV as a kid and only watches DVDs of TV series today because she enjoys fandom: School-age kids can keep themselves busy very well if they have friends and space, as my mother used to complain when she had to physically drag me to dinner nearly every evening because I was too busy with whatever I was doing, and had to threaten me with house arrest to keep me from sneaking away during “a nice family evening watching TV”.

I feel that shrinking space and overorganisation keep kids from being occupied and stimulated on their own. However, it’s easy to allow your kids space if everybody is doing it. If you get dark looks for having and elven-year old bicycle a mile to soccer training, it’s a lot harder.

One more brick in the wall between my second-grader and middle school. If I don’t have time to start the Montessori outdoor-ed charter school she needs, we’re homeschooling 6th through 9th.

We’re also part of an opted-out community, at Montessori school and the training stables there are plenty of peers for my kid. I think it’s interesting what percentage of my sister GenX moms are in the same spot WRT opting our kids out of consumerism, since we were the first kids to be Sesame Streeted in early childhood. The older moms, and by that I mean the woman I married and her age peers who were not exposed to self-styled ‘educational television’ because there was no such thing, seem less concerned.

I’d love to know why. Not so curious that I’m pursuing a PhD in the area, but if someone is, spill.

I also want to recommend “Consuming Kids” a book written by another local author (hey MAJeff! I wish I could figure out a way to contact you in real life since I’m near you and feel you should be adopted and fed) I think her name is Susan Lind. Its contains great research on particular marketing trends to children and their impact.

We recently got rid of a lot of stuff in order to renovate our house, didn’t miss it for a year, and then moved back into our house and stuff seems to just fly through the window. Halloween was one example. The problem with US patterns of consumption is that small and valueless things are used to mark significant moments, social interactions, family life and then you can’t get rid of them and they just kind of pile up and produce clutter (mental and physical.) I think its a good experience to tot up, for example, all the toys and rubber goodies that are handed out at Halloween and ask yourself how much more fun you and your neighbors would have had if, instead of buying all that stuff, you had all gotten together to build one haunted house, or to ice one tray of halloween cookies. If, in short, you had substituted one huge and complex social interaction for a horde of small disposable plastic toys? We are letting plastic and goods substitute for social interactions, just as we let TV watching substitute for creating our own entertainment. Which reminds me of a wonderful expression I heard once: entertainment is what you buy, fun is what you do.

aimai

Why am I thinking Wim Wenders movie here - Alice in the Cities, the part where the journalist is touring the US and kills the TV?