How did generations with unlimited TV and no enrichment…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I definitely did watch a ton of TV in the early 90s. I was a latchkey kid from first grade, came home and watched TV continuously until my parents got home and then I'd watch with them after dinner. I probably watched four or five hours of TV a day.

I remember my mom limiting TV time once I became a latchkey kid in the 90s. I wanted to watch Full House after school and she'd check the back of the TV to feel if it was warm when she got home. So I started going over a neighbor's house and watching it there. I'm sure she had her reasons, but all my brain remembers is trying to figure out how long the TV had to be off to cool back down.

🤣🤣 love this

I remember my friend wasn’t allowed to use the stove when her mom wasn’t home. She really wanted some spaghettio’s, so she heated them on the gas stove. When she was done, she took the grates and threw them out the window into the snow so they would cool down fast before her mom got home. She went out to get them then trampled the area with her feet so her mom wouldn’t see the marks from the grates in the snow 😂

That's quite impressive. 1) heating a meal and using a can opener (or was it the pop top?) and 2) covering tracks to hide the evidence. Most kids wouldn't know how to turn on the stove and would order food from Uber Eats or something rather than try to figure out the stove and the steps that would be necessary after. Forget knowing how to use a can opener, that's a bridge too far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, we weren’t allowed in the house let alone, watching TV all day. Even if we did, we didn’t have cable so 4 channels (and only 1 TV).

What! Everyone I know watched tons of TV. We were latchkeys kids. Parents worked. We had the house to ourselves. I watch Oprah every day after school, plus hours of MTV. I had my favorite TV shows- Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place on Wednesdays. Friends, Seinfeld on Thursday’s. When I was younger I watched hours of TV on weekend mornings, plus evening TV with Cheers, Cosby Show, Family Ties, Who’s the Boss…I could go on and on…

I also read a ton, and spent time exploring with friends. I never had a tutor and didn’t do any extracurriculars until high school.

I agree that education was also better, with the exception of math, sciences and engineering, which are clearly better now.

+1. I watched all of those shows and you could watch MTV for hours. I also liked reading so I read a lot. I did not do any tutoring type of extracurriculars, just one sport.

I think you're too young for this conversation then. Melrose place was in the 90s, I was an older teen when it came out, not a kid. Kids in the 70s and 80s weren't watching it. Same for MTV most of us didn't have cable for a long time in the 80s. Kids of the 70s/80s weren't doing this. You are a different generation.

I was born in 1972 and I watched a LOT of TV. As a little kid, I watched Sesame Street, Captain Kangaroo, Electric Company and a couple of others (including a great one with two hippie chicks on swings) twice a day. I started watching General Hospital every day after school before Luke and Laura got married. Then there was Donohue and Sally Jesse afterschool. Nightly news every night (plus at noon at 10, if I was home/awake). I had a 2-3 hour block of prime time that I watched basically every night. Muppets and Little House and the Osmonds and Love Boat and Mash and Different Strokes in the 70s. Into the 80s, there was Family Ties, Cosby, Cheers Murder She Wrote, Silver Spoons, Magnum PI, Moonlighting, Remington Steele, Scarecrow and Mrs King, Kate and Allie, Newhart, the A-Team, Gimme a Break, Dynasty, Knight Rider, Benson, Quantum Leap, Star Trek TNG. I even watched Married with Children and the Fox lineup when it premiered in the late 80s. Most people I knew had MTV starting in the early 80s, and had that on pretty much constantly (who else remembers the Prince video for Red Corvette?) -- basic cable was pretty cheap, and there was a TON of stuff on TBS, USA and TNT, including reruns of the old Star Trek and Twilight Zone, I Dream of Jeanie, Gilligan's Island and all the great old Cary Grant, etc., movies.
Man, the late 80's were like the Golden Era of Television. There was SO MUCH good stuff! Now I'm lucky if I can find one show a year that's watchable on Network TV. I went to a top ranked college and an Ivy league graduate program, so I don't think the TV damaged my brain too much.

[Anonymous]

My adult kids watched a lot of TV and got no academic enrichment other than I taught them a lot that I found out later most parents don't bother to teach their kids, like I took my 14 yr old son with me to buy a car from a dealer and showed him how to do it without letting them bulldoze and bullshit you during the process. That's just one example of many possible.

They are both doing great as adults. They still watch a lot of TV but they also read a huge number of books and do all kinds of other activities, pretty well rounded adults.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, we weren’t allowed in the house let alone, watching TV all day. Even if we did, we didn’t have cable so 4 channels (and only 1 TV).

What! Everyone I know watched tons of TV. We were latchkeys kids. Parents worked. We had the house to ourselves. I watch Oprah every day after school, plus hours of MTV. I had my favorite TV shows- Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place on Wednesdays. Friends, Seinfeld on Thursday’s. When I was younger I watched hours of TV on weekend mornings, plus evening TV with Cheers, Cosby Show, Family Ties, Who’s the Boss…I could go on and on…

I also read a ton, and spent time exploring with friends. I never had a tutor and didn’t do any extracurriculars until high school.

I agree that education was also better, with the exception of math, sciences and engineering, which are clearly better now.

+1. I watched all of those shows and you could watch MTV for hours. I also liked reading so I read a lot. I did not do any tutoring type of extracurriculars, just one sport.

I think you're too young for this conversation then. Melrose place was in the 90s, I was an older teen when it came out, not a kid. Kids in the 70s and 80s weren't watching it. Same for MTV most of us didn't have cable for a long time in the 80s. Kids of the 70s/80s weren't doing this. You are a different generation.

I was born in 1972 and I watched a LOT of TV. As a little kid, I watched Sesame Street, Captain Kangaroo, Electric Company and a couple of others (including a great one with two hippie chicks on swings) twice a day. I started watching General Hospital every day after school before Luke and Laura got married. Then there was Donohue and Sally Jesse afterschool. Nightly news every night (plus at noon at 10, if I was home/awake). I had a 2-3 hour block of prime time that I watched basically every night. Muppets and Little House and the Osmonds and Love Boat and Mash and Different Strokes in the 70s. Into the 80s, there was Family Ties, Cosby, Cheers Murder She Wrote, Silver Spoons, Magnum PI, Moonlighting, Remington Steele, Scarecrow and Mrs King, Kate and Allie, Newhart, the A-Team, Gimme a Break, Dynasty, Knight Rider, Benson, Quantum Leap, Star Trek TNG. I even watched Married with Children and the Fox lineup when it premiered in the late 80s. Most people I knew had MTV starting in the early 80s, and had that on pretty much constantly (who else remembers the Prince video for Red Corvette?) -- basic cable was pretty cheap, and there was a TON of stuff on TBS, USA and TNT, including reruns of the old Star Trek and Twilight Zone, I Dream of Jeanie, Gilligan's Island and all the great old Cary Grant, etc., movies.
Man, the late 80's were like the Golden Era of Television. There was SO MUCH good stuff! Now I'm lucky if I can find one show a year that's watchable on Network TV. I went to a top ranked college and an Ivy league graduate program, so I don't think the TV damaged my brain too much.

Were you an only child or something? We had 1 tv and there were 3 of us kids and 2 parents. We didn't agree on what to watch so we weren't all watching tv for hours and hours and our parents would also want to watch their shows. And basic cable wasn't widely available until later in the 80s for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, we weren’t allowed in the house let alone, watching TV all day. Even if we did, we didn’t have cable so 4 channels (and only 1 TV).

What! Everyone I know watched tons of TV. We were latchkeys kids. Parents worked. We had the house to ourselves. I watch Oprah every day after school, plus hours of MTV. I had my favorite TV shows- Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place on Wednesdays. Friends, Seinfeld on Thursday’s. When I was younger I watched hours of TV on weekend mornings, plus evening TV with Cheers, Cosby Show, Family Ties, Who’s the Boss…I could go on and on…

I also read a ton, and spent time exploring with friends. I never had a tutor and didn’t do any extracurriculars until high school.

I agree that education was also better, with the exception of math, sciences and engineering, which are clearly better now.

+1. I watched all of those shows and you could watch MTV for hours. I also liked reading so I read a lot. I did not do any tutoring type of extracurriculars, just one sport.

I think you're too young for this conversation then. Melrose place was in the 90s, I was an older teen when it came out, not a kid. Kids in the 70s and 80s weren't watching it. Same for MTV most of us didn't have cable for a long time in the 80s. Kids of the 70s/80s weren't doing this. You are a different generation.

I was born in 1972 and I watched a LOT of TV. As a little kid, I watched Sesame Street, Captain Kangaroo, Electric Company and a couple of others (including a great one with two hippie chicks on swings) twice a day. I started watching General Hospital every day after school before Luke and Laura got married. Then there was Donohue and Sally Jesse afterschool. Nightly news every night (plus at noon at 10, if I was home/awake). I had a 2-3 hour block of prime time that I watched basically every night. Muppets and Little House and the Osmonds and Love Boat and Mash and Different Strokes in the 70s. Into the 80s, there was Family Ties, Cosby, Cheers Murder She Wrote, Silver Spoons, Magnum PI, Moonlighting, Remington Steele, Scarecrow and Mrs King, Kate and Allie, Newhart, the A-Team, Gimme a Break, Dynasty, Knight Rider, Benson, Quantum Leap, Star Trek TNG. I even watched Married with Children and the Fox lineup when it premiered in the late 80s. Most people I knew had MTV starting in the early 80s, and had that on pretty much constantly (who else remembers the Prince video for Red Corvette?) -- basic cable was pretty cheap, and there was a TON of stuff on TBS, USA and TNT, including reruns of the old Star Trek and Twilight Zone, I Dream of Jeanie, Gilligan's Island and all the great old Cary Grant, etc., movies.
Man, the late 80's were like the Golden Era of Television. There was SO MUCH good stuff! Now I'm lucky if I can find one show a year that's watchable on Network TV. I went to a top ranked college and an Ivy league graduate program, so I don't think the TV damaged my brain too much.

THE MAGIC GARDEN!!!
Absolutely loved that show. Their song: “I’d like to say hello and how do you do! I’m fine - me too! We’re fine, and how are you…”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I definitely did watch a ton of TV in the early 90s. I was a latchkey kid from first grade, came home and watched TV continuously until my parents got home and then I'd watch with them after dinner. I probably watched four or five hours of TV a day.

I remember my mom limiting TV time once I became a latchkey kid in the 90s. I wanted to watch Full House after school and she'd check the back of the TV to feel if it was warm when she got home. So I started going over a neighbor's house and watching it there. I'm sure she had her reasons, but all my brain remembers is trying to figure out how long the TV had to be off to cool back down.

🤣🤣 love this

I remember my friend wasn’t allowed to use the stove when her mom wasn’t home. She really wanted some spaghettio’s, so she heated them on the gas stove. When she was done, she took the grates and threw them out the window into the snow so they would cool down fast before her mom got home. She went out to get them then trampled the area with her feet so her mom wouldn’t see the marks from the grates in the snow 😂

That's quite impressive. 1) heating a meal and using a can opener (or was it the pop top?) and 2) covering tracks to hide the evidence. Most kids wouldn't know how to turn on the stove and would order food from Uber Eats or something rather than try to figure out the stove and the steps that would be necessary after. Forget knowing how to use a can opener, that's a bridge too far.

Many kids do cook now. Master Chef Jr made it trendy to teach kids to cook, and Youtube and "learning towers" made teaching toddlers to cook a thing too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I definitely did watch a ton of TV in the early 90s. I was a latchkey kid from first grade, came home and watched TV continuously until my parents got home and then I'd watch with them after dinner. I probably watched four or five hours of TV a day.

I remember my mom limiting TV time once I became a latchkey kid in the 90s. I wanted to watch Full House after school and she'd check the back of the TV to feel if it was warm when she got home. So I started going over a neighbor's house and watching it there. I'm sure she had her reasons, but all my brain remembers is trying to figure out how long the TV had to be off to cool back down.

🤣🤣 love this

I remember my friend wasn’t allowed to use the stove when her mom wasn’t home. She really wanted some spaghettio’s, so she heated them on the gas stove. When she was done, she took the grates and threw them out the window into the snow so they would cool down fast before her mom got home. She went out to get them then trampled the area with her feet so her mom wouldn’t see the marks from the grates in the snow 😂

That's quite impressive. 1) heating a meal and using a can opener (or was it the pop top?) and 2) covering tracks to hide the evidence. Most kids wouldn't know how to turn on the stove and would order food from Uber Eats or something rather than try to figure out the stove and the steps that would be necessary after. Forget knowing how to use a can opener, that's a bridge too far.

Many kids do cook now. Master Chef Jr made it trendy to teach kids to cook, and Youtube and "learning towers" made teaching toddlers to cook a thing too.

They they must forget everything they know by the time they get to high school. Because those kids are obsessed with eating out.

[Anonymous]

While my siblings and I generally watched a ton of TV, I have a story about limits.

We grew up in WNY. During one of the big snow storms that closed schools down for a week, my father decided that we were watching too much TV. We had only one TV, located in the den. Fed up with us doing nothing for a few days, my father turned off the circuits in the den and told us to figure out something else to do for the rest of the week. We were horrified!

[Anonymous]

I think we had our fair share of tv and video games back in the day, but I still don't think it was nearly as much screen time as kids get today. I also don't remember wanting to be on screens that much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, we weren’t allowed in the house let alone, watching TV all day. Even if we did, we didn’t have cable so 4 channels (and only 1 TV).

What! Everyone I know watched tons of TV. We were latchkeys kids. Parents worked. We had the house to ourselves. I watch Oprah every day after school, plus hours of MTV. I had my favorite TV shows- Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place on Wednesdays. Friends, Seinfeld on Thursday’s. When I was younger I watched hours of TV on weekend mornings, plus evening TV with Cheers, Cosby Show, Family Ties, Who’s the Boss…I could go on and on…

I also read a ton, and spent time exploring with friends. I never had a tutor and didn’t do any extracurriculars until high school.

I agree that education was also better, with the exception of math, sciences and engineering, which are clearly better now.

+1. I watched all of those shows and you could watch MTV for hours. I also liked reading so I read a lot. I did not do any tutoring type of extracurriculars, just one sport.

I think you're too young for this conversation then. Melrose place was in the 90s, I was an older teen when it came out, not a kid. Kids in the 70s and 80s weren't watching it. Same for MTV most of us didn't have cable for a long time in the 80s. Kids of the 70s/80s weren't doing this. You are a different generation.

Maybe you are too old for this conversation 😉 I graduated high school in 1994 and my kids are higher schoolers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think we had our fair share of tv and video games back in the day, but I still don't think it was nearly as much screen time as kids get today. I also don't remember wanting to be on screens that much.

+1 Eventually you ran out of things to watch. Only so many channels. We'd watch cartoons in the morning but then the only thing on was boring talk shows so you had to figure out something else to do.

Earlier generations had to learn to make their own fun, use creativity, spent more time daydreaming, thinking, etc. because you had just empty time to fill. It's so easy now to just watch entertainment all the time. We also read more because it was a more readily available on-demand source of entertainment.

[Anonymous]

We never had cable and always had strict limits on TV. Only 1 TV in the house, so everyone knew if it had been turned on. Parents supervised homework nightly to make sure it got done properly, until high school when we were trusted to do it ourselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think education was much, much better.

Agree. Standards have dropped significantly. Have you visited a one room schoolhouse museum and looked at their work then compared it to what the kids are learning at the same ages? Astounding! I saw a mental map of the world from a 12 year old that my straight A 14 year old at big 3 would not be able to replicate. He was surprised when I told him India was part of Asia the other day.

+1. National (NAEP, etc.)and International (PISA etc.) test results show declines in actual learning in the USA, and the trend started well before COVID.

[Anonymous]

Because free play, unstructured time, being bored, problem solving, exploring, all of these are dramatically more important to successful careers and great lives (and for god sakes mental health) than "enrichment."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because free play, unstructured time, being bored, problem solving, exploring, all of these are dramatically more important to successful careers and great lives (and for god sakes mental health) than "enrichment."

Absolutely, this is something that kids/teens don't get nearly enough of.