Along with responsibilities to clothe, feed and educate their children, parents are also responsible for regulating one of the most powerful forces in their homes -- the television set.
Even without poring through research, just about any parent of any child can attest to the fact that the TV can be a force for good or a force for evil. If nothing else, it's something that can eat up big chunks of kids' lives, and that makes it essential that parents exert some sort of control over the device.Of course, not every parent is a TV critic (as I am for the Deseret News) who watches television for a living. The children in the Pierce household are far too accustomed to hearing, "Don't bother Daddy right now -- he has to watch this show for work."
And trying to tell them they can't watch TV when I spend hours in front of the thing is just that much harder.
"Possibly, but that's a rationalization on your part," said TV writer/producer Bernard Lechowick.
(It's wonderful to have friends who can be brutally honest with you, isn't it?)
The people who work in or around television aren't any different than the rest of us. Some are extremely responsible parents, others are less so.
On the one hand, there are people like Don Ohlmeyer, NBC West Coast president, who once said that the sitcom "Mad About You" on his network "should be required viewing" for children. (This would be a show replete with sexual references, including one episode in which the female lead had a sexual experience with a washing machine and another in which the male lead walked around displaying the physical effects of Viagra.)
Or USA Networks president Stephen Chao, who has no problem at all allowing his 5- and 7-year-old sons to watch the violence and sexual acting out that's part of the World Wrestling Federation -- yet insists that he is a "very responsible parent."
Others take that responsibility rather differently.
"I don't allow my children to watch more than an hour and a half a week," said Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon, the mother of a teenage daughter and two preteen sons.
Why not? "Can you find more than an hour and a half of TV that you'd want your kids to watch? . . . This way, they have to shop for that hour and a half of TV they want to spend it on.
"I think television's very powerful. And I think that people who are in this business are telling young kids what it means to be a man, what it means to be heroic, what's funny, what's not, what women want. You have to take responsibility for them, and I don't think everybody's taking responsibility for what they put on TV."
She is not, of course, the only parent who regulates how much time her children can spend in front of the set. At KSL anchorwoman Ruth Todd's house (home to four children between the ages of 12 and 4), the TV rule is "easy -- no weekday TV allowed. Period."
Both Sarandon and Todd sort of make me look like an old softy. The rules at the Pierce house rarely include any sort of time limits (although both Dad and Mom have been known to tell 11-year-old Amanda and 7-year-old twins Jonathon and Hillary to just turn the darn thing off and go play or read or something.)
On the other hand, we are -- according to the children -- considerably more strict about what shows they're allowed to watch than many of their friends' parents. It goes on a program-by-program basis, but in general, most shows on Disney or Nickelodeon are OK; most shows on prime-time network television are not.
They have to ask before they watch anything new. And when your dad is the TV critic, it's hard to put one over on him when it comes to program content.
(At least they ask -- even if Dad almost had a heart attack when Jonathon, then about 5, wanted to watch Fox's "Cops.")
And being a television insider doesn't make one any more lax when it comes to policing the tube. Lechowick -- a TV veteran whose career began in educational TV (he won Emmys for the PBS program "Que Pasa") before he and his wife, Lynn Marie Latham, moved to network television -- pays particular attention to what and how much his two boys (age 17 and 13) watch.
(Lechowick and Latham were longtime writers/executive producers of "Knots Landing," and they created, wrote and executive-produced the award-winning drama "Homefront." Lechowick was most recently co-executive producer of "Hyperion Bay," while Latham just resigned her post as head writer of the ABC daytime soap "Port Charles.")
They've been in the business since before their sons were born, and they've had consistent rules all of the boys' lives.
(Consistency and sanity are important points. I once had neighbors who refused to allow their children -- who ranged in age from 4 to 12 -- to watch "The Simpsons" but let them watch "Beverly Hills, 90210." Huh?)
"In general, for virtually all of their growing years, they couldn't watch anything we hadn't seen or that we didn't watch with them," Lechowick said. "We'd never let them watch a series if we didn't know the series. If it was a first time and they were begging us, then we would watch it with them. And if we saw something we thought was inappropriate we'd either talk about it or turn it off. They hated that."
The boys were also limited to 90 minutes on Saturday mornings and generally no more than an hour on weeknights, with no shows beginning after 10 p.m. and two TV-free days each week.
"They kept to that pretty well, mostly because I monitored it. If I wasn't here to monitor it, it could slide a bit," Lechowick said.
Longtime Deseret News movie critic Chris Hicks -- now the associate feature editor -- didn't allow his children to watch TV during the school week (most of his kids are grown and on their own now).
If there was something they wanted to see, they had to tape it and watch it on the weekend.
"And by the time the weekend got here, a lot of times they would forget about what they'd taped," he said.
Of course, everyone bends the rules now and then.
"If there's an educational special or something, that's fine," Sarandon said.
"We cheat sometimes," Todd admitted. "Like if it's a blizzardy week, there are times when I'll say, 'OK, you can have a half hour here and there.' And they'll watch reruns of 'Home Improvement' or 'Full House.' "
She might also pop in a video from time to time, and her 4-year-old twins might get to watch "Sesame Street" while their Mom gets on the stationary bike "just so I can get my exercise in," Todd said.
At the Lechowick house, rules are relaxed for the NCAA basketball tournament and the NBA playoffs. "That's probably the most watching we do as a family," he said.
While the boys are supposed to finish their homework, practice their music and do their chores before the TV goes on, "Sometimes they'll bargain, or they'll run and do the dishes during a commercial." And the rules can be broken for a "veg-out night."
"If one parent, particularly, or the whole family has had a hard day for some reason, Lynn declares what we call veg-out night," Lechowick said. "And on veg-out nights, which don't happen too much, all the rules are off. That means we call for a pizza and there are no limits on the TV, relatively speaking."
(Bedtimes still apply, however, and inappropriate shows remain off limits.)
Todd also bends the rules from time to time.
"I watch the news, especially if there's an important story that's breaking through the day, CNN is on," she added. "I'm the mother -- I get to break the rule."
At Sarandon's house, on the other hand, TV news is verboten for her three children.
"I don't even want them watching news -- (because of) the violence, and I think that there's terrible stereotypes -- until they're old enough to understand," she said. "And the commercials alone are enough to just drive me crazy. My kids don't know as much about what they're supposed to be buying, for instance."
Although some parents don't allow their children to watch TV at all, others question whether that's really the way to go.
"I'm not going to ban it completely because then they'll think it's so great," Sarandon said.
"I think depriving them of it also makes it more desirable," Lechowick agreed. "We weren't allowed to watch TV and look what happened to me."
His parents were "very strict" about television. "We were allowed to watch one show a week, I think it was, and we could choose between Perry Como and Bishop Sheen. So I think that could be counterproductive."
And, while there's a lot on TV that no child should ever see, there's also plenty that's not only fun to watch but uplifting and educational.
"There's some really valuable stuff out there," he said. "Even staying away from the high-brow stuff and the animal documentaries, there's a lot in prime time to be awfully proud of."
"I think there's a lot of good on TV," Todd agreed. "There is a lot of good stuff if you pick and choose.
"But it wouldn't be their first choice. Their first choice would be (cartoons) . . . I feel like if I opened that door, they would become couch potatoes. It's just too easy."
Which is why parents need to pay close attention to what their children are watching.
"I think it's important to realize how much is good on television. But, as a parent, it's my job to help them reach adulthood as well-rounded human beings," Lechowick said. "And I don't think you become a well-rounded human being if you spend an inordinate amount of time in front of the TV set every night. I just don't think it works out."
It's all about training children that there's more to do than watch TV.
"If they choose when they're 18 to play Nintendo for the rest of their lives or whatever might happen, that's their choice," Sarandon said. "But at least they'll be able to exercise some discrimination. And I think if they have the option of just sitting in front of it, they would."
Even though they're limited to 90 minutes of TV a week, Sarandon's kids still found it tough last summer when they weren't allowed access to either their TVs or the computers for several weeks.
"They went through this kind of junkie's withdrawal period, where you go really nuts and cranky, and then they found plenty of stuff to do," she said.
Still, it isn't easy. Do you turn off the TV when your boy is enthralled by a documentary on the Discovery Channel? And when are kids old enough to watch "Friends" or "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," shows that sixth-grader Amanda insists all of her friends are allowed to see?
That seems to happen in every family, however, such as when Lechowick and Latham's older son wanted very much to see "Pulp Fiction," and they didn't think he was ready for the R-rated film. As it turns out, Rick Lechowick goes to the same school as the daughter of "Pulp Fiction" co-star Samuel L. Jackson.
"While Ricky was complaining that we wouldn't let him see it, we found out that during that same period, Sam Jackson didn't let his daughter see it," Bernard said. "That really was nice."
(Just wait 'til I tell my children that some kids only get to watch 90 minutes of TV a week.)
And any parent who puts any sort of restriction on their child's TV viewing will, at some, point be accused of being overly strict.
"They think I'm a little strict," Lechowick said. "But I do think you can speak quantitatively. You can say, 'Your day hasn't been balanced and you can become an unbalanced human being.'
"Of all of the things you can do in life -- take a walk, swim a lap, paint a picture, read a book, pet the dogs, play basketball, play an instrument, wash the dishes, cook a meal, kiss your grandmother -- if on most days the thing you choose to do is sit and watch TV for most of your unregulated hours, then I think you just grow up unbalanced. And that's the theory behind my limiting the kids' TV."