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

[LongTimeListener]

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.

 

[The Big Ragu]

No, I can't come over and play. ... Alf is on at 8!

 

[Baron Scicluna]

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

 

[User 11148]

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.

 

[Captain_Kirk]

 

[poindexter]

They'll have trouble telling time

 

[Starman]

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.

Bull****. 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 **** 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.

 

[User 11148]

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.

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.

 

[Starman]

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.

 

[Captain Obvious]

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

 

[User 11148]

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.

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 ...

 

[Starman]

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!!

 

[LongTimeListener]

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.

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.

Really? My town had cable throughout the '80s, maybe even by the late '70s, plenty of time to watch Aussie football and the NIT every year.

 

[Mark2010]

I grew up in the 70s and 80s. Wouldn't trade it to be a teenager today. We lived in major cities an had basic cable, so plenty of viewing options.

 

[RubberSoul1979]

What cable channels were worth watching before ESPN came along?

 

[Huggy]

Love how the guy wants to live likes it's 1986 but he is wearing one of the new-style Jays jerseys.

 

[BTExpress]

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 paid $120 for this out of paper-route money in the early 70s.

Also spent about $100 a couple of years later on Odyssey video game system. Ugh.

Maybe that's why I'm so jaded against "gotta buy the newest thing out there" today. When you get burned that badly as a kid . . .

 

[micropolitan guy]

Nice to know the Leafs will still suck, though. Some things never change.

 

[Mark2010]

What cable channels were worth watching before ESPN came along?

CNN and ESPN both started within months of each other in 1979. Prior to that, having cable usually meant getting a couple of out-of-town stations (WTBS, WGN, WOR, etc.) and a station that had the weather forecast 24/7. Maybe also getting a station from a nearby metro area that the antenna didn't pull in very well. But there weren't many (any?) designated cable networks in those days.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Nickelodeon began before ESPN, and as I recall it was a bigger deal for quite a few years. That could be just a sampling of my own neighborhood where the kids were more likely to be watching cable, but I think it was that way in most places.

ESPN had tons of college basketball including the tournament, and that was cool, but I don't recall them becoming a major, massive force until they got the NFL in 1987.