One family I babysat for had this kids remote that just had a power button, volume buttons, and about eight channel buttons which the parents set to Nickelodeon and Noggin and PBS and other kid-friendly channels. They put some sort of guard over the channel-changing buttons on the actual set, and kept the regular remote somewhere out-of-reach when the parents weren't watching with the kids.

It's all so crazy to me. But then, I've never lived anywhere with more than one TV, even when I had four roommates.

Not so much--my brother and SIL have just the bigscreen in the living room, and the computer in the boys room has no internet hookup at all. In fact, after a few transgressions, the 15-y.o. nephew has been banned from the internet completely, other than school-related stuff done while a parent is in the room.

One family I babysat for had this kids remote that just had a power button, volume buttons, and about eight channel buttons which the parents set to Nickelodeon and Noggin and PBS and other kid-friendly channels. They put some sort of guard over the channel-changing buttons on the actual set, and kept the regular remote somewhere out-of-reach when the parents weren't watching with the kids.

Whereas I let Emmett watch a little bit of Foxy Brown the other day.

His reaction? "That is SO cool."
Me: "Yeah, well. Pam Grier."

Unfortunately, I forgot about the particular vengeance at the ending and had to rapidly skip over to the end over his protestations.

Eh, I had a teevee and cable in my room when i was a kid, and I could read anything I wanted to read.

My brother did not.

I also was given a car when I was 16. My brother had to borrow mom's car, the keys were given only after a long discussion about where he was going and who with.

I was uber-responsible and scored good grades, my brother not so much.

Hard to make any hard and fast rules. Depends on the kid.

I have things to say about television & right wingers & whatnot but I need your all help! My BF is preparing a writing submission to a rather well-known comedy uh, thing. He has to include a cover letter, and we are both fairly clueless about what such a cover letter should look like. Does anyone have any suggestions or can point us to exemplars?

Allyson just started that craxy different things work for different people talk again.

Don't we have a rule about that?

My BF is preparing a writing submission to a rather well-known comedy uh, thing.

This is what he's doing with his Philosphy degree? Writing for The Daily Show?

I think this works a lot better in theory than in practice, especially with older kids.

Eh, so put away the tv if it upsets you that the kids might watch something without your presence. Seriously. When my brother and I were younger and first started getting home from school before the parents, the tv started living in a closet. It eventually came back out and when we were older, I'm sure mom figured 3s Company reruns were trash, but as long as we had our homework done, she wasn't going to make it an issue any longer.

I really won't make excuses for people who are abdicating parental responsibility because it is an inconvenience and then complaining about the consequence.

I think I've said this before, but my parents took us to see Kentucky Fried Movie and Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex when we were kids.

And I had a tv in my room in high school, with cable access.