Mourning the Death of Family-Friendly TV
It was an opportunity I had dreamed of my entire teenage life. I would stand on a football field, albeit with hundreds of other teenagers, and sing on national television alongside Reba McEntire. Any aspiring singer would jump at the opportunity, especially if she admired Reba like I did.
My dad, however, was not enthusiastic. The event fell on Thanksgiving Day, designated as a special time for our family to enjoy the day together and celebrate traditions. I didn't appreciate the importance of it, especially since it was squashing my chance of getting "discovered." Now that I'm an adult, I understand what my dad was trying to instill in me. He was willing to go against the ambient culture in order to maintain family time.
The Los Angeles Times recently reported on the decline of "the family hour," a traditional set of TV programming made to appeal to the whole family. What was once a coveted and heavily marketed hour is now becoming increasingly mainstream and adult in its broadcasting. As the article states, network heads simply do not feel the need to cater to the once-popular "family hour," because today's families don't really watch shows together. Instead, most family members use personal computers or smartphones to catch up on their favorite shows; the average U.S. household has about 20 digital devices. It's probable that on any given night, a family of five can watch five separate shows in different rooms of the house, or even in the same room, never once having to look up from their individual screens.
The LA Times article focused on the entertainment shift, but that shift points to a larger problem: the loss of family togetherness. That families don't do the most basic activities together, even an activity as mundane as watching TV, points to a larger dearth in familial interaction. This is to our collective detriment. Studies show that families that share regular meals together thrive. A 2006 Time article emphasized that the more a family eats together, the less likely their adolescent children are to behave in ways that are characteristic of their age group (i.e., smoke, do drugs, behave promiscuously, battle depression or eating disorders). Such students also seem to perform better in school, care more about reading, and generally grow into civilized members of society. But they are an anomaly. If families aren't hurriedly grabbing a meal from McDonald's on their way to another extracurricular activity, they are microwaving a frozen dinner and eating while doing other things. It's rare for a family to cook a meal and sit down at the same table at the same time. We are just so busy. And if we aren't busy, our iPhone or computer is enough to keep us company for the night.
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Walter Comer
I just thank God for watching over me thru my adolescent yrs (13-38) when "I" knew it all and life was showing me I did not. Not even close. Growing up, My family had dinner together. We watched "The Brady Bunch", etc., together. My dad took me fishing and, on my B-day, Mom made a special day of it, shopping, lunch, etc.. I was/am a lucky guy, and I wouldn't trade those times for all the gadgets and "entertainment" from here 'til the day I die.
Jennifer
It's "McEntire". Can you not even get a major celebrity's name right? (Editor's note: We apologize for the misspelling; the entry has been corrected. Thanks for the catch!)
Doreen Ashley
Thanks for noting that church activities can also threaten family time, Courtney! More churches need to be aware of this problem. I know my family struggled in several church homes to keep our family together rather than split off into children's church, youth group, women's group, men's group, and so on. We also dealt with multiple church leaders who had determined that church functions were more important than our spending time at home as a family in the evenings, to the point that we were asked to either participate more or be removed from the ministry team at one church (my parents taught children's church).
Doreen Ashley
What about the cable station (channel 51 on Comcast Chicago) that touts itself as "ABC Family" - this "family-friendly" channel usually shows programs with kids doing everything you DON'T want yours to do - and NOT for the purpose of showing consequences either. I had high hopes for programs like "Secret Life of the American Teenager" (since it was from the same people who did "Seventh Heaven" a few years back) but they lost me when I was watching the show with my 17-year old son and his 16-year old girlfriend when they had a scene with a recently-widowed mom and her 16-year old cheerleader daughter (this family was portrayed as Super-Christians"/zealots and were always evangelizing to everyone else; the daughter even hosted these absurd "abstinence pep rallys") Anyway the daughter was asking her mom about what she could do to try and avoid having any MORE pre-marital sex with her Christian boyfriend (the HS quarterback of course) and her mom started giving her advice on masturbation - right there at the breakfast table! because that's what SHE did ever since her husband died! Talk about "too-much-information!!" Now we had just started taking my son's girlfriend to church with us (she comes from a very dysfunctional family with a history of sexual abuse; she was always asking me questions about Jesus, so we began taking her with us Sunday mornings.) I will NEVER forget the look on that girl's face as my poor son scrambled for the remote to turn the TV off! My son was embarrassed, I'm sure the girl was thinking "What have I got myself into?," and I was just plain mortified... Who knew when I turned on "family-friendly TV" (well maybe for Rosanne Barr's family, but not mine) that I would have to spend an hour apologizing for the poor portrayal of Christian women on TV! (By the way, the cheerleader believed that the reason her mother was a widow in the first place, was because God punished her for having pre-martial sex by killing her father in an airplane crash -WOW! Wrong on so many levels!!) What an APPALLING way to portray Christianity in general and Christian women in particular... No wonder its so hard to get kids into church nowadays when the only time they see us portrayed on supposedly family-friendly TV is as zealots, hypocrites, and cursed by a vengeful God! The lesson here is DON'T BELIEVE TV STATIONS WHEN THEY SAY THEY'RE FAMILY-FRIENDLY and walk away thinking your child or teen is "safe" watching that particiular channel - THEY LIE to get you to do just that, then expose your kids to subversive "values" that come with YOUR "pre-approved" stamp on them! WATCH TV WITH YOUR FAMILY - at least then you can refute the values they portray if you don't agree with them.
Kathleen
The article makes this claim: "While it might seem noble and cool to live outside the confines of a family, countless studies have shown that families where a father is absent, due to reasons other than death, face greater dysfunction and turmoil." A family is no less a family simply because an adult male is not in the household. In fact, the most recent studies show that children raised by lesbian couples score slightly better than those raised by heterosexual couples. Reissig appears to be making a common mistake made by those pushing a particular agenda -- comparing 2-parent families to single mothers and then claiming that the poorer outcomes in lower-income, single-parent families are due to the absence of a male. Let's try to be a little more accurate with the claims.
Emily Stone
I enjoyed this. This talk needs to be had about television viewing. We shared the link on our Saturday Sampling at stonewritten.com. I hope more people read it. http://www.stonewritten.com/?p=3766 Peace, Emily
Marmot
It's cute when Christians try to manufacture an issue out of how non-Christians manage the network TV schedule. I'm waiting for the day when all channels show nothing but porn, and we can have CT articles gently suggesting that family time is breaking down since all our favorite shows became sexually explicit. We lost the game when we incorporated our TV addiction into our "family time" expectations. Cut the cord.
Patricia
A great article, with many thought-provoking points. I'm a single woman, living alone: never married, no children. I eat dinner in front of the TV probably 99% of the time, just to have some 'company'. My sister and brother-in-law have their own busy lives, and I don't want to impose on them (although they invite me to their home for overnight stays). And my twin sister wants nothing to do with either of us (a long story there). I have a laptop computer, but don't use it to watch TV shows. The whole 'family time' thing doesn't resonate with me. Sadly, that was true in the church: I had a very bad experience with one 'church family', and it scared me away from any further involvement. I've come to the conclusion I am probably meant to live alone, with only occasional family contact. It is what it is, for me.
sam
sorry, that last comment should have been @Robyn!! :)
sam
@MarloweOverShakespeare, you are correct! The article is about more than technology: it's about "the loss of family togetherness". "that shift points to a larger problem: the loss of family togetherness. That families dont do the most basic activities together, even an activity as mundane as watching TV, points to a larger dearth in familial interaction. This is to our collective detriment. Studies show that families that share regular meals together thrive. A 2006 Time article emphasized that the more a family eats together, the less likely their adolescent children are to behave in ways that are characteristic of their age group (i.e., smoke, do drugs, behave promiscuously, battle depression or eating disorders). Such students also seem to perform better in school, care more about reading, and generally grow into civilized members of society." I think a lot of families just interact differently than they used to. I have always thought the lament over the loss of the family dinner is misleading. I'm not saying don't eat together; I'm suggesting that eating a meal together regularly isn't a formula to guarantee healthy teens in your family. Isolated statistics like that simply show that families who eat dinner together probably have lots of other commonalities that together add up to generally more healthy and successful children (read the book Freakonomics). Individuality should not be idolized, but dare I say neither should family togetherness? Neither are a recipe for success and perfect families. Honestly, if I were Courtney's parent today, I would have chosen to take my whole family to listen to my daughter sing the anthem with Reba McEntire. That's just a different version of preserving and promoting family togetherness, and I think both Courtney's father's decision and mine are perfectly acceptable, just different.
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