Growing Up In A House that the TV controlled

[JuniorMan]

When I was a kid, I grew up in a house that was 100% ruled by the Television set. Nothing was more important than watching this or that when my parents were together. From the age of a little boy to when I was 13, we used to sit and eat dinner as a family, that quickly ended at age 13 cause "who wants to sit and talk, let's just watch TV" even to this day it's like that back with my parents. As a kid I watched a lot of television but the older I got I started to distance myself in a fear that when I grew up, I'd end up just like my parents. My father couldn't even break away from starring at the TV for a minute to listen to you talk, or when he did it was a power struggled of his eyes switching from you to the TV as if it was more important than you. My mom eventually developed it over time, and lord forbid if what you have to tell them is not as important as what they are watching, they would get angry so easy. TV is so easy to get addicted through with video games too, who in the hell wants to waste all their time with homework when they can just play Donkey Kong for hours on end?

When I look back at it, I think my parents lost a lot of time starring in front of the television and I also will blame it why they never fully grew up out of their young state of minds. As much as they argued and fought when we were kids, and always blaming each other, and so on, sometimes I do think the TV is to blame for that. I would even go so far to blame ADD for the TV cause it's just so easy to lose what you're doing and go to something else, like the TV does with it's advertisements.

TV can so easily control you and get you think like a stereotype. I also think it fuels racism, and other problems we encounter these days that we should be past. I haven't met every single black person in the world to judge them and call them something based on some movies that came on TV. This is essentially a problem everywhere I see with not just black people, but any race entirely. Why is it we even need this? I thought America was a country where everyone could get along. Instead it's the total opposite of everything, and the older I've grown, the worse it is with stereotyping race and the typical BS.

As soon as I began to distance myself away from the television I started to notice things why I essentially hated it. On top of being ignored by a TV show or commercial, it became a noisy nuisance to me as I became older. If someone else was talking in the room my old man would just turn the TV up louder and louder to drown you out. The TV stayed on 24 hours as a kid, they also needed the noise to sleep, even when it was so loud you had trouble from your room. The thing I hated the most about the TV is how it's always "buy now!" with commercials, and it's so easy to get people to spend money on things that they don't need. My parents had some of the filthiest mouths in times, and sometimes I really had to wonder when we have TV shows and movies that are just loaded with profanity. I heard it on an everyday basis from my parents own mouth, so it's pretty much drilled into me.

What I truly cannot understand is why do people sit and watch this dumb stuff? I'm talking about "Reality TV" I hear about this constantly, how people watch dumb and idiotic things that come on MTV or other dumb reality shows. How can you sit there and watch that junk? It's so pathetic, why do I need a TV show that shows me idiots in New Jersey that just cuss and party all the time? Am I supposed to be jealous I don't have it made like them? I don't understand this at all.


To this day I own a television in my house but I don't have cable. It's something I can live without, every now and then I'll pop in an old DVD and watch something, but that's all. I find writing and listening to music to be a world that the TV can't create loaded with imagination. If something happened in this country and there was a whole country wide outage of cable television, I think it would be a crisis. No one can live without their magical TV set.

[Gutenberg]

I think your story demonstrates the problem of television in a nutshell... I think many people can relate to what your wrote. As for myself, I grew up partly without TV and we didn't get a TV at home until I was around 12 years old.

As an adult I learned about the negative impacts of television on our society, and at the moment I've been living without television for 9 years. I've never regretted saying goodbye to television, and for one thing I've found that you have a lot of free spare time on your hand once watching television no longer is a part of your daily routine...

Welcome to the forum Juniorman, and thanks for sharing your story. At the moment there isn't that much activity on this forum, so I hope that you'll become an active poster here. Be sure to check out our stickies about Anti-TV Books and Anti-TV Blogs & Websites, as you'll find a lot of interesting information there.



- Gutenberg

[JuniorMan]

God bless you for this site, I am really glad I found it, as I have been dealing with it for the last 6 years "Oh you don't even have cable?" like it's some weird thing. Growing up with the TV set was tough in times looking back. I don't even remember much of what was watched by my folks but as a child growing up when someone is ignoring you over "I don't care, watch this! it's so cool!" it really bothers you even as you get older and look back at it. They can remember things on the TV set but can't remember what you were trying to tell them.

I swore to myself as a teenager once I got older I would never ignore people or family members of anything on the television and I still swear to that. The one thing I will never forgive the TV for is how it basically robbed my family of eating dinner together and discussing how the day went. We go from sitting together talking to one another to just lining up in the living room for dinner and starring at the television, and of course I was the strange one for not doing it the older I got.

I'm not 100% free of the TV I must say, every now and then I'll pop an old DVD in and watch something but other than that it stays off mostly in my house, and you are so totally right. When I put the TV down I started to pick the guitar back up when I was younger, and I began to pour way more time into playing music and reading again. I used to draw a lot as a kid too and when you watch TV it gives you the impression of "Why even bother, I'll never draw like this" it took me years to get passed that and pick up the pencil that I used to spend hours just drawing to have fun.

Once again thanks for this site and I'm gladly checking out the links!

[TerryS]

Hi JuniorMan, welcome to our board!

Most people who grow up in homes where the TV is usually on become addicted to TV and stay addicted to TV for the rest of their lives. So the fact that you perceived the effects of TV from such a young age is really very impressive.

As for not being 100% free of TV, I would say you really are living a TV-Free lifestyle. A couple of hours of TV every week or two, is such a small fraction of what most people watch as to be immaterial. I think that TV is kind of like alcohol, a little bit every now and then is ok, but getting drunk 2 or 3 times a week, not so good. Unfortunately we are ending up with a world of Tvoholics.

Hopefully that will eventually change, and more families will go back to actually talking to one another around the dinner table.

Terry

[Gutenberg]

@Juniorman: I'm glad you like our forum, and I hope that you'll find it useful.

I'll just take my opportunity draw your attention to yet another essential link that you ought to check out if you have the chance. Perhaps the best introduction to what's problematic about television, is an article called Television Addiction Is No Mere Metaphor... It was published in Scientific American back in 2002, but it's still very relevant today. Unfortunately you have to buy the entire issue as a pdf, but it's only $7.95 and it's well worth the money. http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... -n-2002-02

Regarding DVD's... I personally don't watch DVD's, but this forum is open for everyone interested in learning about a TV-free lifestyle, no matter where you stand on the TV issue....

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[JuniorMan]

I appreciate the warm welcomes and agree with TV being like alcohol, amen to that. When I go see my family for the holidays and so on, it's like they are robots watching it. They can't see themselves like me but they sit there mesmerized by it. Of course I am the weird one cause I don't watch TV and argue how it's a waste of my time A lot of times I blame the TV for how my parents have acted their whole life and along with my sister and their attitudes, when there is a problem just keep turning it up to drown it out, sorta like that Pink Floyd song Nobody Home ("I've got 13 channels of shit on the TV to chose from")


I do tend to watch football games with friends every now and then and stuff like that but I find it more to be social interaction with that, yet I can argue that some people do take the sport part of it over the edge with arguing. It's just entertainment nevertheless and not worth arguing over or getting too angry to the point of cussing.

When the TV is out of the equation you can do so much more, for example my music. I went from being lazy with the guitar to actually playing it and learning new things and found a much better hobby when I was young besides wasting hour after hour after hour in front of a screen.

Personally, I think this country are baby sat by the TV and it's sad. I know many, many, many people who wouldn't live a week without their TV.

[Rose1]

Hi

I just read your postings from a few months ago and I have only recently been on this site but I really appreciate the way you have described what it was like growing up in a TV controlled home and I hope to read more of your postings!