It’s About Making Babies!

Back in my day there was consternation, wailing, and gnashing of teeth about the end of the family. Parent’s couldn’t keep their kid’s attention, many families didn’t seem to try.

Television. Dubious morals, violence in news, in fiction, and marketing to susceptible minors. TV took kid’s attention. We lived immersed in Star Trek, As the World Turns, The Garry Moore Show, and Captain Kangaroo (his coat had big pockets). Parents had little opportunity to discuss family history, values, goals. Kids developed dreams and life goals that their parents couldn’t understand – and couldn’t help them plan for.

Today we have text messaging. And DVD players. And MP3 players, etc. And the parents grew up disconnected from their family and don’t see a problem.

I sat behind a young family last night, at the local movie theater (National Treasure: Book of Secrets, very good, if not as exciting as the first one). The 6th grade (my guess) boy had his cell phone open, text messaging. During the movie. I leaned forward and said, “You have to turn the cell phone off.” His father told me, “He is just text messaging.”

The kid was quiet, turned off the cell phone. But his *father* really disturbed me.

Most families are unhappy with movie ticket prices ($5.50 for the kid last night), yet they wanted to pay for the ticket and not expect the kid to pay attention to the movie? Or worse, are so used to divided attention – texting while watching TV, during meals, in the car, and during other possible times to share with the family – that it never occurs to the parents to teach their children to ‘watch’ the movie. Ideally, going to the movie is about more than the popcorn and the story, it is about joining with an audience, about sharing reactions to the unfolding story.

Not to mention, the cell phone acts as a flashlight in the darkened theater. Which makes a constant distraction from the film for many people around the light source. People that paid for their tickets for a movie, not a preventable, rude distraction.

And the kid’s father saw nothing wrong, with the kid text messaging, creating a light source in a darkened theater, instead of watching the movie with his family and the rest of the audience.

I wonder what this man’s definition is, of ‘family values’.