Blog 5 Week 5

1.              The main topic this week that really made me stop and think, was parents who act more like their child’s peer or best friend, and not the parent.  This week’s article “Parenting: The Lost Art” was an interesting read.  The article starts out describing the commonplace of violent movie ads in today’s TV that many children and young adults watch.  Surprisingly, the article presents that half of all parents have no rules about what their kids watch on television (and it goes on to say this is most likely a low estimate).  Furthermore, two-thirds of American children between the ages of eight and eighteen have their own televisions and one-third of those are under the age of seven.  Alternatively, the article also states that most parents care about their child’s moral and social development, but that parenting has become a lost art.  Honestly, I believe that parenting has just changed. 
               We have become a society that relies on two incomes to make ends meet and television as an artificial babysitter.  It is absolutely fascinating to see how young children adapt and know more about how to operate the tablet or PC than the parent.  Educators are finding it increasingly difficult to do their jobs more and more however.  Our text describes the amount of time a child spends watching TV and interacting with family (pg. 278).  The time watching TV usually outweighs time spent engaging with the family and therefore there is more time for TV ads to influence and persuade young viewers. 
    
2.             My brothers and I often came home alone after school in the 1980’s and early 1990’s to an empty house in a suburb of Atlanta, GA.  I remember watching the move Predator as early as the age of eight, as well as Critters.  In reality, even earlier I was watching these movies but being forced to leave the room during the “inappropriate” parts.  My dad had Playboy magazines down in the basement (though I am certain he had no idea we knew) and I remember looking thru them before I hit puberty.  Through my years in therapy as an adult, I know my mother is technically a narcissist.  But, I have no doubt, my parents did the best job they knew how to do and at the time.  We were on and off food stamps when I was young, and finally moved to Seattle, WA when I was eleven because my mom’s dad had just passed away, and my grandmother was all alone. 
               My mom was a better mom than her mom, and I know this due to my relatively recent conversations with my cousin (her nephew) and his wife (who happens to be a therapist).  I no longer blame my parents for why I am self-conscious, have ADD (and depression/anxiety) and have only had one real close friend (thanks Rachelle) my whole life.  I found after a while it was completely pointless to try and place blame, but rather I realized it made me who I was (which thank goodness is pretty awesome and well educated).  Whether or not this makes me supremely popular or rather unknown and a wallflower, I am unique, special, spirited, shy, a loner, an introverted attention seeker (weird, I know) who just wants to be loved.  I am 31, single, female.  I am not likely to change much as far as personality goes.  I like who I am, but that doesn’t mean I don’t envy other people and the way they are.  But, I do recognize, that they too, are products of their society, genealogy, family and environment.  Bottom line, now halfway through this lifespan psychology course, I can accept that there are many factors in determining who we are and what we are like, not just watching violent movies or having sex in early teenage years.  Really, that is the beauty of it all, and what makes us truly unique.  If it were as simple as 1+2=3 (in terms of personality or behavior), life would truly be boring or repetitive.
    
3.             If I could really ask an honest question to either the author of this week’s article or the author(s) of our textbook, I would really consider asking the pro’s and con’s to the damage control parenting described in the article.  I have heard ever since I was a teenager of parents who would let the “boyfriend” sleep over.  To this day I am convinced it is still a myth, but the evidence is out there, not of the benefits, but that of the parents who rather it would happen under their roof versus a car in the parking lot.