« Making another deposit in the memory bank | Main | 16 Years: In Loving Memory »
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Parental fieldcraft vs. Technology
I don't know about the rest of you, but when I was a kid, my parents could come home and know in an instant if we'd been camped in front of the TV all afternoon. All they had to do was go over and put a suspicious hand on top of the now-dark Television set. If it was warm, you were busted.
With today's flat screen LCD and Plasma TVs, that bit of parental fieldcraft doesn't really work anymore.
What's next, downloading homework and reports from the Internet?!
oh wait...
Posted by David Bogner on March 3, 2010 | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c581e53ef01310f595662970c
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Parental fieldcraft vs. Technology:
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
My in-laws used to use the hand-on-top-of-the-TV trick. It got my wife grounded once.
Posted by: psachya | Mar 3, 2010 11:29:26 PM
I don't need to touch the TV... when I enter the house and hear footsteps scuttling away, I know something was up.....
One look at their faces....
Posted by: RivkA | Mar 4, 2010 1:14:46 AM
Your kids must be much neater than mine. I see all the pillows on the floor and a bowl or cup on the table, perhaps a child size ring of crumbs... They are always amazed when I know they were watching and are convinced I have secret powers they can't begin to understand.
Posted by: Chedva | Mar 4, 2010 1:30:17 AM
Hmmm... don't remember watching tv in the afternoon. What house did you grow up in??? I DO, however, remember getting up VERY early (6-ish) in the morning so we could watch cartoons before the rest of the house was up... and then we were pushed outside for the day. TV watching was monitored back then. (plus there wasn't much on!)
And we all crowded onto Mom & Dad's bed at night to watch "All in the Family" and "Mary Tyler Moore" together... aaaaaaaaaaaaah... oh and g'nite John Boy!
Posted by: val | Mar 4, 2010 2:28:43 AM
When the computer is on "hebrew" mode, that's a very strong clue to me that someone's been on facebook.
And like Chedva, my kids leave evidence in the TV room all the time.
Posted by: Baila | Mar 4, 2010 7:33:29 AM
I used to watch TV all the time when I wasn't supposed to, and I don't think my parents ever knew. We had a TV that was older than I was in the living room, black & white with knobs and levers instead of buttons, and it was inside a cabinet with doors that were normally closed. I was so good at it that from when I heard their keys jangling in the hallway (and I could usually tell the difference between their keys and the neighbors'), I could have the TV off, the channel knob back to where it had been, the volume lever back to where it had been, the cabinet doors closed and be back in my room (skipping the creaking floor tiles) by the time they had the door open. I don't think they even thought to check the TV.
Posted by: Alisha | Mar 4, 2010 1:58:36 PM
Haha!! My dad could just tell by looking at my face!!!
Posted by: Ben Wakeling | Mar 8, 2010 7:59:00 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
