I've been thinking about something for a while and with TPP's earlier post, it got me thinking I ought to ask everyone else's opinions on here.



If you have kids or if you plan to have kids, what would they watch? I mean would you just let them watch whatever was on TV, whatever was on the kids' channels or would you put your foot down on programs you thought were crap, and would you also try to get them into stuff like the movies and shows you saw when you were a kid?

When I was growing up, my parents put their foot down on Nicktoons, Barney, and Cartoon Network's original cartoons like Johnny Bravo and Cow and Chicken. Just about everything else though on the kids' networks was a-go. But, for our time we saw a bunch of the more 'retro' stuff as well, the original Looney Toons, the old Walt Disney cartoons, The Flintstones, the Jetsons, the 60s and 70s Charlie Brown cartoons, and we saw old movies like The Bat, House on Haunted Hill, the Blob, and we watched the 3 Stooges, and for nightly programming we saw I Love Lucy, Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, The Munsters, Dick Van Dyke...it's very rare if not impossible to find any of that stuff airing on TV today, which is too bad because I'd still rather see any of that, than the crap they have on today.

And since I don't see TV, especially children's programming getting much better anytime soon, I think by the time I had kids, regular TV would be out of the question and they would mainly be seeing videos of the older stuff like I grew up with.

You couldn't watch Barney? As in this...


Anyways, I would let my children watch anything I felt wasn't inappropriate for their age.

I'm not that big a stickler when it comes to this. If I see that subject matter is a little too grown for her, then she's changing the channel, but I don't have a list of shows that are off-limits where she's concerned. She's not watching Red Shoe Diaries, I will say that much.

It depends on their age...Plus, I've relaxed a bit about it...My older kids were not allowed to watch any TV at all for the longest time, only movies that I picked. We didn't have cable so it was easy.

Now we have cable and they watch Disney and Cartoon network, but they aren't allowed to watch CN when adult swim comes on. They are limited to 2 hours a day of screen time, computer, DS, TV...That includes at school so they pick what they like mostly.

My twins were only allowed to watch Signing Time's DVD's which taught them a lot of sign language, but I actually bought them for my then 2 yo who had a speech delay and I didn't want the twins watching them at all because they were under two but that just wasn't practical.

Then we got cable...Now the twins watch Caillou and Bob the Builder. So does Shep (he's 3.5 now).

Other than that, I decide what I think is appropriate. I got some flack for letting my kids watch "Hancock" on a parenting site that I'm on, but I stand by it. I also let my older kids watch Paranormal Activity 2 the other day. I hadn't seen it, they told me that their friends watched it, I told them I would watch it and decide... I watched it, told them that there was bad language in it that they were not to repeat and that if they were up all night scared they would not watch another scary movie for a long time, and let them watch it...

So, I feel like I take it on a case by case basis, but really try to limit their screen time.

Nhaiyel wrote:

You couldn't watch Barney? As in this...


Anyways, I would let my children watch anything I felt wasn't inappropriate for their age.

Well it wasn't that I couldn't, but nobody else in the house appreciated it, and I had a big Barney doll and a set of bedsheets for a couple years before I finally outgrew it.

I don't think the problem is less about the content and more about the quantity. I'm not terrified of kids seeing what's on network television, despite the fact that too much of it is trash TV. I'm more concerned about the # of hours they spend logged in front of the TV to the point where these shows and characters start to become something they idolize too much.

I didn't allow Barney. A lot of parents don't.

As for what my son watches, I am pretty lax about it now. I don't like the cartoons for adults so I don't let him see that, but he still does when he is not at home, I know.

I didn't let my kids fuck with Barney either....not because I objected to it morally (eh....maybe I did) but because it's a dorky ass show. My monsters were too dope for that shit.

I would steer into the direction of 1980s - 1990s cartoons. They didn't treat their audiences like idiots.

But, really, I wouldn't have many restrictions. I seem to recall watching Rocky Horror Picture Show at age 8.

None of my kids are up past 9pm so there isn't much on while they're awake that I object to. As far as network television is concerned. The only thing I may have pause about would be things like afternoon court shows, talk shows and soaps, none of which they are interested in anyway. As of now it really hasn't been much of an issue. I'm really not interested in being THAT kind of an overprotective parent, who shields their kids eyes and disapproves of anything that isn't sing-songy TV-G, or aired on Nickelodeon during the day.

Impact wrote:

I'm really not interested in being THAT kind of an overprotective parent, who shields their kids eyes and disapproves of anything that isn't sing-songy TV-G, or aired on Nickelodeon during the day.

I never knew anybody like that. We mainly watched stuff that was what you would call age-appropriate, but we also watched some more relatively 'adult' stuff, my brother LOVED the Batman movies of the 90s, and we watched Overboard with Goldie Hawn and we always laughed ourselves sick when she's trying to do the housework, and as I've said before, my favorite movie as a child was a horror movie called The Bat, which is from the 50s so it's not very violent, but it's the dialogue, the implications that are so frightening, the imagery of a killer who rips open his victim's throats with steel claws and all that, gave me nightmares for years but I loved it. Now our parents were kind of strict with the stuff we watched but in comparison we had a neighbor who let her kid watch EVERY thing, R rated crap all the time since he was 3, and you know, I really can't say that it didn't do any harm with him.