The Abortion Debate. Again.

[leswp1]

Re: The Abortion Debate. Again.

Why do conservatives continually stress "family values" while arguing at the same time that "societal influences" are destroying our children? If family values matter that much (which I strongly believe they do) then what's on the TV shouldn't matter squat.

Not cimbing on the family values bandwagon but there is merit to the too much exposure thing. When kids (or any human being) get exposed to anything for multiple exposures that portray it as OK it is hard to recall after awhile why it is not OK. If you are with the kid at every exposure and can discuss then fine. Most kids live without thier parents stuck to them.

Case in point- I teach/ run the HS group at my church. They have taken a number of things for granted without much thought- drinking to blackout, pregnancy, sexual activity to name a few. When I run the group I just ask them to truly think about stuff. They frequently change thier mind. Not because it is the way the church wants them to think- I actually don't bring that up too much. They just 'never thought about it before cos it is just normal'.

 

[Terrierbyassociation]

Re: The Abortion Debate. Again.

Why do conservatives continually stress "family values" while arguing at the same time that "societal influences" are destroying our children? If family values matter that much (which I strongly believe they do) then what's on the TV shouldn't matter squat.

It's not our fault. It's everyone else's. It could never ever be our fault that our kids turn out the way they do. It's gotta be TV, it's gotta be popular culture.

It's a large portion of today's society: blame everyone but ourselves.

It's not liberal or conservative, it's modern American.

It *is* more conservative to blame liberalism and popular culture for the ills of society. But it's just all around wrong.

 

[walrus]

Re: The Abortion Debate. Again.

Why do conservatives continually stress "family values" while arguing at the same time that "societal influences" are destroying our children? If family values matter that much (which I strongly believe they do) then what's on the TV shouldn't matter squat.

Peer pressure is quite strong no matter what your family says or does.

 

[Terrierbyassociation]

Re: The Abortion Debate. Again.

Peer pressure is quite strong no matter what your family says or does.

Nothing is stronger than a good family environment and good involved parenting. Not even peer pressure.

 

[walrus]

Re: The Abortion Debate. Again.

Nothing is stronger than a good family environment and good involved parenting. Not even peer pressure.

Maybe, but some slip anyway.

 

[leswp1]

Re: The Abortion Debate. Again.

Nothing is stronger than a good family environment and good involved parenting. Not even peer pressure.

While this is true as children grow up they become exposed to more and more stuff that others consider as normal. It is a very few short steps from knowing it is wrong, knowing is is wrong for you but OK for others to it must sorta be OK. This is not blaming anyone. It is human nature. When I was a kid unwed parents were shocking. Now they are the norm. It didn't happen overnight. It happened slowly, little changes at a time. I am not making commentary on whether it is right or wrong- it is just an excellent example. You could use gang violence if you want. Totally unacceptable in the unexposed suburbanites at my church but just somethin' that happens for some of my patients.

 

[Handyman]

Re: The Abortion Debate. Again.

Let me try to put this in pictures that even Sinemax would understand...

If you regularly portray that infidelity and "sleeping around" is fine, jim, and dandy, then eventually the ooze slips out of the pool and gets into the clean water supply, and we all get sick.

Trouble is, how do you get the genie back in the bottle?

So there wasnt infidelity at all back in the day before it was portrayed so much on tv...huh then my grandparents got divorced for nothing...

I love it, you all actually think things back in the day were like they were on Leave it to Beaver or Donna Reed...its so cute!!

 

[Carter]

Re: The Abortion Debate. Again.

I love it, you all actually think things back in the day were like they were on Leave it to Beaver or Donna Reed...its so cute!!

I grew up thinking Leave It To Beaver or Father Knows Best was kind of the way all families were, including my own. (Except for my mom used to beat the hell out of me) Took me years to get past that illusion and realize that there were feet of clay everywhere.

 

[ScottM]

Re: The Abortion Debate. Again.

So there wasnt infidelity at all back in the day before it was portrayed so much on tv...huh then my grandparents got divorced for nothing...

When I was an undergrad, one of my profs had written part a paper or book on premarital sex among the Puritans, as well as segments of Baptists and Catholics in the 18th century along the east coast. Arguably more conservative than those wild Methodists and Anglicans. She discovered a large percentage of births in all groups she surveyed took place less than 9 months after marriage between the "happy" parents. So, you either had alot of premies or there were alot of "musket weddings".

Premarital sex, infidelity, abortion, etc. are not 20th or 21st century creations. They have been around for Millenia ... at least since Jesus rode his pet Tyrannasarus Rex around Nazareth.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: The Abortion Debate. Again.

I grew up thinking Leave It To Beaver or Father Knows Best was kind of the way all families were, including my own. (Except for my mom used to beat the hell out of me) Took me years to get past that illusion and realize that there were feet of clay everywhere.

Of course those aren't very realistic of most peoples' lives. I doubt anybody believes that. But what they did do is show positive role models and generally provide constructive lessons in life, things basically no television show does anymore. Not having such positive lessons and behavioral models for children to see as they watch tv while they are growing up inevitably has negative impacts on both individuals and society as a whole. And yes, of course parents, family, etc. should also provide those positive impacts on kids, but we simply can't pretend that television content and what our children are exposed to doesn't have a massive impact on shaping our society both now and in the future.

 

[Carter]

Re: The Abortion Debate. Again.

Of course those aren't very realistic of most peoples' lives. I doubt anybody believes that. But what they did do is show positive role models and generally provide constructive lessons in life, things basically no television show does anymore. Not having such positive lessons and behavioral models for children to see as they watch tv while they are growing up inevitably has negative impacts on both individuals and society as a whole. And yes, of course parents, family, etc. should also provide those positive impacts on kids, but we simply can't pretend that television content and what our children are exposed to doesn't have a massive impact on shaping our society both now and in the future.

Lot of truth in this, but let's face it, it's today's parents who are allowing their kids to watch all this negative stuff on TV. Granted I was a kid a long, long time ago, but even in the 50s there was programming that my folks didn't feel was appropriate and we weren't allowed to watch. I don't recall much of an urge to break the rules either, since Lassie was enough to scare the crap outa me every week.

 

[duper]

Re: The Abortion Debate. Again.

things basically no television show does anymore.

I couldn't disagree more. There is a lot of garbage and "bad stuff" on tv, especially compared to "the day," but at the same time, there are a lot of television shows that have good lessons, and positive role-model type situations. I think you severely overstate the situation.

 

[Slap Shot]

Re: The Abortion Debate. Again.

Maybe, but some slip anyway.

I agree, but that's going to happen no matter how much censorship we employ. And while a parent cannot shelter their child 24/7, such insulation isn't required for delevoping into a well adjusted adolescent/teen/adult.

Cripes, I grew up in an era of TV crime dramas when there was just as much murder in episodes as there are now, when MTV began it wasn't exactly the prude family network, the Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw and Halloween frachises took off when I was in junior high, Judas Priest and heavy metal were all over the place, and advertising for ligour, beer and cigarettes were at their highest level. Yet my parents were around enough and involved enough to instill some core values that followed me through the years.

I realize that not everyone is lucky enough to have such an upbringing but how far does such censorship get us? And if we start with movies, TV and the media, do we go Fahrenheit 451 with literature and bring back Tipper Gore in order to totally shut it down?

 

[Terrierbyassociation]

Re: The Abortion Debate. Again.

Of course those aren't very realistic of most peoples' lives. I doubt anybody believes that. But what they did do is show positive role models and generally provide constructive lessons in life, things basically no television show does anymore. Not having such positive lessons and behavioral models for children to see as they watch tv while they are growing up inevitably has negative impacts on both individuals and society as a whole. And yes, of course parents, family, etc. should also provide those positive impacts on kids, but we simply can't pretend that television content and what our children are exposed to doesn't have a massive impact on shaping our society both now and in the future.

They showed a pipe dream, a fallacy, a LIE. And people ate it up because they all wished their lives are like that. What we needed were REAL positive role models. Real constructive lessons in life. Not fake ones.

Don't you see the irony? How absurd is it to take lessons from lies? Isn't there some awesome quote about how no matter how much truth you put on something, no matter how much value you can glean from something, it's all tarnished if its based on a lie.

No one should base their lives off of TV, but looking at the good old days of television that was only positives. That's not real, that's having people thinking the TV is some fanciful dream.

TV is supposed to be real, not complete escapism.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: The Abortion Debate. Again.

Lot of truth in this, but let's face it, it's today's parents who are allowing their kids to watch all this negative stuff on TV. Granted I was a kid a long, long time ago, but even in the 50s there was programming that my folks didn't feel was appropriate and we weren't allowed to watch. I don't recall much of an urge to break the rules either, since Lassie was enough to scare the crap outa me every week.

Agreed on today's parents. Many simply use tv and video games as convenient babysitters. We watched some tv and played a few video games as kids, but nothing approaching what you see in a lot of households anymore, where kids just get hour after hour of this stuff pretty much every day.

Yah, the things that were viewed as edgy and my parents frowned on back when I was a kid would today be viewed as so basic and conservative and uninteresting that they'd never be created now. No way a The Waltons type show gets made anymore. There's such a focus now on "realism" that you lose the chance to show like a really good character as a positive role model. Now even the good guy has to have some really bad character flaws to supposedly show realism and humanness.


duper,

I can hardly think of a show that's come out in the last 10-20 years that I'd want to let a small child of mine watch. Unless maybe it's an animal channel show that's just showing animals running around or something. But shows that feature people in social situations and such to me are pretty much all unacceptable. I can't say I've even watched a lot of new stuff in recent years, but from the previews and such, I think I have seen enough. Even the ones that try to be relatively clean and family oriented slip in bad language or sexually suggestive things occasionally that I wouldn't want a small child of mine to be exposed to.

I recently got married and we're hoping to have children soon, and my new wife and I have talked about how we don't want our kids exposed to the culture that is prevalent in today's tv and movies. I might even drop satellite tv, which I mainly use for soccer, college football, and such, as I'm not thrilled with the thought of some of the stuff that's on there that a kid could be exposed to even just flipping channels. I think a lot of people forget just how easily influenced people can be, especially young children.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: The Abortion Debate. Again.

They showed a pipe dream, a fallacy, a LIE. And people ate it up because they all wished their lives are like that. What we needed were REAL positive role models. Real constructive lessons in life. Not fake ones.

Don't you see the irony? How absurd is it to take lessons from lies? Isn't there some awesome quote about how no matter how much truth you put on something, no matter how much value you can glean from something, it's all tarnished if its based on a lie.

No one should base their lives off of TV, but looking at the good old days of television that was only positives. That's not real, that's having people thinking the TV is some fanciful dream.

TV is supposed to be real, not complete escapism.

I fundamentally disagree with you. Lord of the Rings is of course fantasy, but you can still take very strong lessons from it about honor, courage, etc. And something like Father Knows Best is a whole lot closer to real life than Lord of the Rings. You can have something that's 100 percent fiction, yet it can do an incredible job of passing along values and principals to live by. Your view robs you of the opportunity to harvest much of the richness and value that television, movie and other mediums can pass along if quality programming and movies are created.

And of course no one should base their lives on tv. That's stating the ultra-obvious that no one is claiming. But nevertheless, tv can be a powerful medium in shaping how young people view things. If you have a kid that sits and watches tv five hours a day after school and all day on weekends, don't you think that kid will be influenced differently than if that same kid spent evenings and weekends outdoors, playing with the dog or hiking or biking and such? Of course those very different inputs would influence how the kid develops.

Gritty realism without substance behind it is for the most part meaningless and vacuous and something I generally find little or no value in.

 

[BoomGoestheDynamite]

Re: The Abortion Debate. Again.

duper,

I can hardly think of a show that's come out in the last 10-20 years that I'd want to let a small child of mine watch. Unless maybe it's an animal channel show that's just showing animals running around or something. But shows that feature people in social situations and such to me are pretty much all unacceptable. I can't say I've even watched a lot of new stuff in recent years, but from the previews and such, I think I have seen enough. Even the ones that try to be relatively clean and family oriented slip in bad language or sexually suggestive things occasionally that I wouldn't want a small child of mine to be exposed to.

I recently got married and we're hoping to have children soon, and my new wife and I have talked about how we don't want our kids exposed to the culture that is prevalent in today's tv and movies. I might even drop satellite tv, which I mainly use for soccer, college football, and such, as I'm not thrilled with the thought of some of the stuff that's on there that a kid could be exposed to even just flipping channels. I think a lot of people forget just how easily influenced people can be, especially young children.

How far back are we going, because most of the childhood shows and sitcoms I was raised on up through Junior High were Saved by the Bell, Family Matters, Full House, Fresh Prince, Boy Meets WOrld, etc.

I'll admit I have an aversion to the 50s shows for reasons (complete lack of us brown/yella/ black folk, unless we were shining shoes or waiting tables), but they also seemed to present an unecessarily sanitized world.

The shows I grew up with dealt with some issues like sex, alcohol, drugs, peer pressure, etc. and tried to show positive ways of resolving these issues. Shows from yesteryear just never talked about it and I hardly think thats because they didn't exist.

 

[duper]

Re: The Abortion Debate. Again.

duper,

I can hardly think of a show that's come out in the last 10-20 years that I'd want to let a small child of mine watch. Unless maybe it's an animal channel show that's just showing animals running around or something. But shows that feature people in social situations and such to me are pretty much all unacceptable. I can't say I've even watched a lot of new stuff in recent years, but from the previews and such, I think I have seen enough. Even the ones that try to be relatively clean and family oriented slip in bad language or sexually suggestive things occasionally that I wouldn't want a small child of mine to be exposed to.

I recently got married and we're hoping to have children soon, and my new wife and I have talked about how we don't want our kids exposed to the culture that is prevalent in today's tv and movies. I might even drop satellite tv, which I mainly use for soccer, college football, and such, as I'm not thrilled with the thought of some of the stuff that's on there that a kid could be exposed to even just flipping channels. I think a lot of people forget just how easily influenced people can be, especially young children.

Obviously, this comes to personal views, and as such, I certainly respect not wanting one's children to see things that one finds objectionable. I guess my thought is, I would actually rather have my children (if I had any) watch some of the shows that are on tv now, wherein loving, normal families, who have normal flaws and foibles, live in the world together, than something like Leave it to Beaver where I see empty homily.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Abortion Debate. Again.

I guess my thought is, I would actually rather have my children (if I had any) watch some of the shows that are on tv now, wherein loving, normal families, who have normal flaws and foibles, live in the world together, than something like Leave it to Beaver where I see empty homily.

You must not have seen this episode.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: The Abortion Debate. Again.

Obviously, this comes to personal views, and as such, I certainly respect not wanting one's children to see things that one finds objectionable. I guess my thought is, I would actually rather have my children (if I had any) watch some of the shows that are on tv now, wherein loving, normal families, who have normal flaws and foibles, live in the world together, than something like Leave it to Beaver where I see empty homily.

I guess I just don't see a lot of shows today that depict normal, loving, but certainly imperfect families that don't have some amount of objectionable (and really unnecessary) sexual innuendo, bad language, and such. Really, a lot of the junky stuff is not central or necessary to shows, except for appealing to whatever portion of the audience won't watch a show that doesn't have the requisite level of sexual innuendo.

I'm really pretty tolerant to a show or movie that has some objectionable stuff here and there if it is done in a manner that meaningfully portray's life's struggles and difficulties, at least for my own viewing. But, I think when thinking about what kids are exposed to, I'd err on the side of being a little over-protective than erring on the side of a child being exposed to a lot of the out-and-out junk that is shown on tv these days. Really, if kids were more of a priority in many households, this would be a non-issue to a sizable extent, as the tv wouldn't be a babysitter very much. And yes, I know not all households can always do that, but many can, but do not.