Canadian family parties like it's 1986, technology-wise

http://www.torontosun.com/2013/08/31/guelph-family-lives-like-its-1986

Man and woman in Guelph didn't like what screens were doing to their kids, so for a year they put away all technology that was created after 1986. “We’re parenting our kids the same way we were parented for a year just to see what it’s like,” Blair said.

Story mentions that they are boyfriend and girlfriend, so I presume they chose not to accept the societal conventions of the mid-1980s when people who lived together and had kids were typically married.

Anyway, they are parenting better than the rest of us. Bet they're vegans too.

 

Andre the Giant is a great guy. He'll never want a shot at Hulk's title.

 

Hmmmmmm .... Although if I followed this couple's lead I'd have to take my kids back to the early 60s, even in the mid-1980s my parents' household featured: 1) only one TV; 2) only four channels on said TV; and 3) no microwave (so no microwave popcorn). My father did get a VCR in the summer of 1983, and my hometown got its first video rental store a couple of years later, so we would have that ...

With as much time as my 16YO son and 11YO daughter spend glued to one screen or another, however, I'm not so sure this isn't a great idea.

 

They'll have trouble telling time

 

Bullshit. They were both born in 1986, so I would lay good money on the assumption their families had cable TV and VCRs by the time they were old enough to remember, i.e., 3-5, so it is more than likely they were 'parented' pretty much like everyone else of their age.

I don't know if they were living out in Hooterville on the edge of civilization, but where I lived (NOT a major metropolitan urban center) we got cable teevee in 1976-77, a microwave in 1978 and a VCR about 1980.

Gotta go back further if you are really bent on de-teching the family life.

Cassette tapes came into wide use about 1973-74, breaking music free from the vinyl disc and making actual car stereo possible (8-tracks had a brief vogue of a couple years but they were so clunky and cumbersome and the sound quality such absolute shit they never had a chance).

Home stereo as in 'audiophile'-type component systems came in about 1972-74, taking over from 'record players.'

LED digital clocks came in to fairly common use about 1970, about the time pushbutton phones started taking over from rotary dial. Digital calculators hit the mass market about the same time.

I remember my dad got about a 4 x 6, 5-function calculator in about 1971 (I think it cost about $100 in 1971 dollars). For any of us kids to use it, we had to ask to borrow it on a case-by-case basis.

 

They didn't bring cable to my hometown until the 80s. It didn't make it's way beyond the city limits until the 1990s.

 

It was a great big deal when our family got a color teevee in June 1967.

On which we could pick up ONE (1) channel clearly, 2 others scratchy-fuzzy, and 2 others flickering/flashing if the ionosphere shifted just right.

 

More annoying: people bragging about their own lack of using modern technology or vegans?

 

Did y'all have one of those antenna rotor deals? My grandfather (mother's father) had one and my parents (and I and my sister) were sooooo jealous: They could get ABC clear as a bell ...

 

No, we had to get up and move the antennas around by hand. I was the best in the family at tuning the stations in.

We got CBS loud and clear, NBC scratchy and fuzzy, and ABC fading in and fading out (mostly out).

The NBC and ABC stations powered up dramatically in 1971, so we could finally "enjoy" the full spectrum of programming (ahem, cough cough).

Then, 4-5 years later, came cable. Woohoo. 27 channels and nothing on!!