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Comment by chriskelley | Hacker News Reader

I grew up in the country where we had barely one channel through the fuzz, I maybe watched half hour a week. The rest of the time I played outside, learned how to work hard on a farm, immersed myself in Legos, wrote stories with my sister, and played cowboy in the woods.

Giving the creative mind enough time away from a TV to have to earn it's own entertainment is hardly cruelty.

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"I grew up in the country where"

Right, and since everyone else was in a similar position, I'm sure that worked fine. My problem comes when everyone at school is talking about some element of popular culture, and one kid doesn't have a clue what to say because his parents don't let him watch TV.

Everything in moderation though :)

Well stated and I completely agree. TV is valuable socially, although many would like to disagree.

I grew up without a television, and it really wasn't that bad. The problem I ran into was a little different- when I was around a television, I couldn't stop paying attention. I've gotten better about that sort of thing as I've gotten older, but the truth is, I still can't tune out noise, or televisions, anywhere near as well as my peers who grew up with televisions.

I don't know if that's a common experience though.

I experience this already with my six year old when he plays with the neighborhood kids. We have a TV, but we don't have cable, nor do we have bunny ears to get the local stations (not that we could get them in the future anyway). We don't bar them from watching TV (much like the friends and grandparents exception someone else mentioned), and we do all watch kids' movies at home once a week or so. The only bits of kids' culture that they know are Sesame Street (because of a few videos) and the various Pixar movies (Cars, Wall-E, etc).

Are you kidding? Not being able to talk about pop idol wannabe got booted is a serious problem for you?

  "My problem comes when everyone at school is talking about some element of popular culture, and one kid doesn't have a clue what to say because his parents don't let him watch TV."

This sounds like your projecting your own issues onto your kids (believe me when I say I know how that plays out, ask me why my kids aren't going to school sometime). Actually forcing TV on your kids or insisting that it's vital is utterly ridiculous.

Forcing your kids to eat unhealthy is cruelty, locking them in a closet is cruelty. Not having a TV is un-American, not cruelty.

"Actually forcing TV on your kids"

What??? I'm not forcing anyone to do anything. I don't realy understand what you're trying to argue.

Preventing kids from growing up with experience of popular culture, is what I considered cruel.

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