How Hollywood has cheapened our family life

As a life-long educator — teacher, principal and all that — and as a parent and grandparent, I have always tried to be attuned to what young people were reading and watching. When I say “young people,” I am referring to those between the ages of 9 and 15. Before the youngest age everyone is focused on their well-being and life speeds by. After 15, what they are going to be and how well it is going to turn out is pretty well set. It is that “middle age” time we virtually ignore.

In the “old days” the major value programming instrument, television, helped us out a great deal. Oh, the news programs were devoted to politics and all that stuff but we as parents and teachers had support in our efforts by a lot of family programming. There was “Little House on the Prairie,” “The Waltons,” “The Partridge Family,” “The Brady Bunch,” “The Disney Hour,” “Andy Griffith,” “Welcome Back, Kotter,” etc.

While these programs and others like them did not specifically target young people, they were written in a way that allowed a family to watch and discuss the underlying issues without having a group consciousness encounter. Even Archie Bunker allowed America to discuss forbidden topics without swearing.

All the comedies were tame by today’s standards, if in fact, there are standards today. And they were well-written. Isn’t it amazing how many different comedies could be written without blatant sexual reference and still be funny?

I am not a prude in the least bit, I assure you. But I cannot find a series that is suitable for family viewing on any network between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. The wonderful variety shows are gone. Dean Martin, Carol Burnett, Flip Wilson, Bill Cosby, the Smothers Brothers, Sonny and Cher, “Laugh-in,” and on and on, have been replaced with reality TV. And, the programs are directed to an audience older than 16. The commercials are not, however. They still devote a large part of that time to children; strange isn’t it? In programming, it seems as though once a child has outgrown Sponge Bob, he is ready for lots of T & A, promiscuous sex and the gore of violence. Even the cartoons are suspect, if one uses “Family Guy” or “South Park” as examples.

Maybe I’m just getting old and yearn for the “good old days.” It saddens me that we chase our young away from the family room, off to their bedrooms with their computers and the Internet; and then criticize them for being “remote.” It saddens me that when this is done, predators enter into that secure world, invading the defenseless. It saddens me that we have abandoned our young in programming for a selfish demographic and a bottom line that avoids good writing. It saddens me that young parents do not have the assistance I had in raising their children, where the family room was a daily gathering place, not a once-a-week event. And it saddens me greatly to see the possibility of a growing population of valueless people.

King is a resident of Bigfork