Basic culture literacy? Or, by homeschooling I've screwed up my kid.

[Pintosrock]

About 6 years ago, we took the tv out of the living room. My kid (age 9) spends her free time reading,  playing and making lots of art. Success,  right? Nooooo...

My kid signed up for a theater class this summer,  which she LOVES. The problem is they end every class with a game like charades, except you talk to give clues. Since she doesn't watch TV, my kid is TERRIBLE at guessing the other kids' characters. Today, she decided to be Matilda, which no one, not even the teacher could guess (but her clues were very obvious, if you've read Roald Dahl). 

My kid has asked to bring the TV back out and be allowed to watch shows/movies. So, what are all the popular things kids are watching? Frozen and Toy Story and ??? I'm so clueless and out of the loop. Help!

[000000000]

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Edited November 24, 2023 by 000000000

[Bambam]

We had this issue as well since we don't watch regular TV. Fortunately for us there were other homeschoolers who weren't fans of TV too. 

So, I'm no help. We just dealt with it as it came up. As the kids got older, they became more aware of what was popular.  Hey, I don't even know what is popular or who the current movie stars are as well. It's not something I miss. 

 

[bookbard]

Honestly, watching TV won't solve that problem - they're all into different things, and I don't know if most of them are picking it up from TV but from youtube. If you've got the choice, don't go down that road, it isn't worth it. 

[Scarlett]

My mom did not have tv for about 4 years. I was 12-16, my brother was 8-12. It was fine. Great in fact. The cultural gaps were minor. 

[Rosie_0801]

There's so much out there, it's impossible to master it all. Your kid already knows what "everyone" is talking about, so there's no need for you to put the effort into pre-emptive research.

 

My kid got the required amount of pop culture at that age from her stepmother, so I didn't have to take the trouble. Now she's a teen, her mates ask if she's seen whatever movie or tv series, and she asks them if they've ever read whichever Dickens novel, they "huh?" at each other, laugh and go on with their lives. Sometimes she'll decide something is necessary for her pop culture education, so she investigates. All I tell her is to stay away from gore and domestic violence, because she doesn't need them in her head.

[ScoutTN]

A movie now and then is fine. Lots of good ones to choose from. Needn’t be current. TV is largely trash; skip it. 

[maize]

When we were growing up, there were a few TV shows that most people were familiar with. Same for music artists and bands.

I feel like these days there are way more options and fewer things that everyone would be familiar with.

 

[KungFuPanda]

Gaps are gaps. They’re not immoral or virtuous. You just have to decide if this particular gap is worth filling. I didn’t have a TV in the early 90s for 4 years. I’m still confused about early 90’s music. There are still references I miss. A friend lived in Greece from the ages of 6-17. She has to have common references explained. It’s no big deal. 
 

If your daughter wants to learn about these shared references, and it’s ok with her parents to do so, she can probably get up to speed quickly enough to fit in with a group of kids. 
 

I like to err on the side of more knowledge as long as it isn't harmful. Sometimes that means learning silly stuff. 

[Shoeless]

It will be fine. She's 9 and her lifetime success won't depend on how well she can quote Frozen or whatever. 

Maybe ask the teacher to move on to games that don't require pop culture knowledge. 

Edited June 28, 2023 by Shoeless

[Ting Tang]

We’ve been without tv, too. We do watch a few channels on YouTube and Little House on Amazon from our computer. A lot of homeschooled kids we have discovered are out of the loop on some trendy cultural things. But… they also know a lot more about other things! Matilda was a great character your daughter chose. Matilda has even been a play! Maybe you could talk to the  teacher, but assure your daughter it’s no big deal. Matilda is well known, yet they didn’t have a clue, either! 

[Grace Hopper]

Well Matilda is a pretty hot Broadway musical right now so imo it’s not a stellar showing by her theater classmates. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

A lot of the popular Disney movies started as books. Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, even Frozen was based on The Snow Queen. 

[Sneezyone]

What are you hoping to achieve through deprivation? I ask not because I think it's a net negative (there are definite benefits) but b/c there are real downsides to being culturally illiterate as an adult too (just like any other kind of literacy). Being 'apart' from the world isn't a 'good' unto itself. What does your kid want to do and is she prepared to be comfy in that sphere? And if not, how can you ease the transition? I can't answer that, only you can.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Sneezyone

[Melissa in Australia]

We don't have TV either, but do movies.  

Not doing TV has a huge amount of benifits, mostly because everyone can spend that time doing other things. Like reading or building /craft/tinkering. 

I don't get people saying not watching TV is a  deprivation. Heaps of people don't watch TV any more.  I have heard that something like 60% of people in their 20s don't even have a TV. I know all my adult kids don't have one, they do have phones and computers. 

[Shoeless]

I'm not even sure that most kids watch tv anymore.  The kids I know are all glued to YouTube and TikTok. 

Stranger Things has been popular with the middle school/early teens around here. 

A movie now and then certainly won't hurt, but I am personally not keen to jump on a media-consumption bandwagon just because "all the other kids are doing it".  

 

[bookbard]

If you did want to add a few movies, reading a version of The Snow Queen and comparing it to Frozen wouldn't be bad (it is a good movie, as is Frozen 2). But to be honest, Frozen is something 3-5 yr olds get obsessed with rather than 9 year olds. I would not recommend the recent musical version of Matilda - both I and my kids found it quite traumatic to watch. The 10 yr old in my life is into Power Rangers and Pokemon, both on Netflix. But his friends watch The Simpsons and Stranger Things, which I won't allow. 

[frogger]

The problem with cutural literacy is that America is so big there are many cultures. Each little group has its favorites. Even when I was a kid there were the comic book kids, the Dungeons and Dragons kids, the I know every professional basketball player who set foot on a court kids. We found groups and we rubbed off on each other and every group had their own favorite shows, books, songs. 

A great small talk is what you watched lately or what your favorite movie is and then they will be more than happy to tell you about this one that was just so funny or had the best sound track and if they sell it, your daughter will want to watch that one.

[Eos]

We haven't had a tv and yes the kids did miss some cultural literacy things growing up, but it seems like nowadays the barrage of information and entertainment is much higher volume to keep up with. The amount of consumable options available increases the number of hours needed to stay current = not worth it to me but I'm not parenting young children in this age and I send my deepest compassion to those who are.

I think that by providing space for internal creativity and theatrical experiences, your child will easily pick up what they need to, when they need to, if they need to.  It's the same lens as homeschooling-as-learning-how-to-learn.  Keeping communication between you as open and active as possible is important, so that if she feels behind or left out, she can count on you to help her find the information and references she needs.

 

[Carrie12345]

Ruining is definitely the wrong word.  
Temporary discomfort sounds more accurate. Doing poorly in a game stinks.

I wouldn’t throw away my principles over charades.

My own kids have grown up pretty mainstream, but my favorite thing about sticking mainly (not entirely) to homeschool crowds is that they grew up with a real mix of kids, in terms of hobbies and interests. All of the kids themselves understood that not everyone does/knows/likes the same things, so there wasn’t much status in chasing fads or judgment for having gaps (in anything.)

[HomeAgain]

We've been in a similar situation.  When we lived overseas, we only had a very small selection of shows and usually 2-3 years behind.  The first year we were back in the states I gave my kid a "pop culture class", in which once a week or so he and I would sit down to watch things that were culturally significant and age appropriate.  He may not have known everything on tv, but he did know the references everyone else had ingrained into their culture memory.  Things like the 'ouch' scene from ET, the Princess Bride, major animated films...along with more cult classics like Twilight Zone, Addams Family, Star Trek, etc. Even game shows made it in there.  He was a teen at the time, but it sparked a small love for films (and a firm understanding not to trust my interpretation of ratings!  PG in the 80s is not PG in the 2000's.  Oops!)

Our library has a digital library, including tv shows and movies.  If you don't want to go full on with something like cable or Disney+, the library might be a good place to start looking for some things to watch as a family.

[marbel]

My kids are past this now, but for a while they were culturally illiterate around TV shows and, for my daughter, some toys that were super popular at the time. They didn't really care about the TV shows - people could explain it to them and it wasn't a big topic of conversation. As for the popular toys, that didn't really come up in conversation and she knew if someone was obsessed with them, they weren't going to be good friends. When Marvel started getting big, we saw a few of the movies but they didn't like them at all, so we stopped, but my son familiarized himself with some of the characters so he could make comments now and then. 

Where they felt like they were missing out was music (I mostly listened to 80s or classical in the car and at home). So we started listening to more current popular music. Over time, they got their own pandora or whatever accounts (eventually spotify) and they were on their own. 

But people can be culturally out of step into adulthood so it's not too bad to get used to it and accept it as normal cultural diversity.

When my son was older and joined a volunteer fire company, he found he was out of step with his colleagues because of not being into sports. He watched a few games in season, learned some terms and the names of some of the big players so he would know what they were talking about. But he could never really converse. And honestly some of the men were worse than kids at finding him deficient because he wasn't into the Eagles or Phillies. It was pretty disappointing to him but by then he could see they were equally lacking in some various forms of knowledge, and he was more secure in himself. 

LOL this reminds me though of my own thing. When I was working at a call center, coworkers used to chat on a slack channel when time permitted. Someone started talking one night about movies and said she had just seen 'the new King Richard movie.' I was intrigued because I didn't know of a new Shakespeare adaptation, and I almost asked, but something prompted me to google... you know what's coming. In case you don't, the movie was about Richard Williams, dad of Serena and Venus. I was so glad I had googled first and not embarrassed myself. 

Edited June 28, 2023 by marbel

[Momto6inIN]

My husband grew up without TV and did not know about even 1 single Disney movie or Saturday morning cartoons or TV show. I still married him 😉 and he still got a job so 🤷‍♀️

Our kids grew/are growing up without TV and with only carefully chosen movies. When they got to college they didn't get some pop culture references. It's just not that big of a deal. They still have friends and can laugh about their ignorance and so can I.

If not knowing about inane TV shows is "ruining" a kid's chances at a great life, then our civilization is doomed anyway, tbh.

[Kanin]

I teach kids in elementary/middle school. They don't seem to be watching TV. Maybe movies sometimes. They mostly talk about youtube and tiktok. 

I'm pretty horrified at the grown up things they're now concerned about as a result of spending lots of time on social media. Not necessarily offensive things, but stuff like body image, relationship stuff, etc. Stuff that I thought about when I was in my 20s, now they're talking about it at age 10.

 

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

we didn’t have TV growing up and didn’t watch popular movies or listen to popular music.  Welcome to 90s homeschooling. It honestly did make me feel weird among peer groups and I still feel a little out of touch; on the other hand I rarely watch TV as an adult so maybe I am just out of touch.  
It sounds like it is something that’s bothering your daughter, so I might try to purposefully introduce some current moviws or whatever.  As adults, I think it’s easy to think this isn’t a big deal and pop culture is overrated, but it can be something that feel huge to a child.

I have a sister who is “reparenting” herself with a steady diet of 90s music and TV. I don’t understand that angle either.

[SKL]

Some things are quick and easy to learn, and I think TV / movie literacy is one of those things.

When my kids were little, we didn't do TV, and I had a friend saying "what will they do when they go to KG and have no idea who Mickey Mouse is?"  😛  My kids came home after their first day of preschool with considerable knowledge about superheroes, Disney princesses, and so much more.  😛

I made considerable use of our DVD player to hopefully help my kids' "cultural literacy."  I could choose when they were ready for what.  We also went to a lot of live productions (even high school plays are great for young kids).  I like to think my kids are not rock ignorant.  😛

Around age 13 is when I let go of the reins - that was when Covid took away every social and arts outlet.

[MEmama]

We took to watching tv together during dinner around the time DS was in middle school, and we still enjoy it today. We did want to expose him to pop culture he wasn't going to pick up on his own, both so he would understand basic cultural references and to provide natural talking points. It worked great for us, we always found plenty of things to watch that we all enjoyed and it's been helpful for him to have a base of knowledge he wouldn't have otherwise been exposed to.

We've never sheltered him and he never had any homeschooling friends.

[HomeAgain]

49 minutes ago, Momto6inIN said:

If not knowing about inane TV shows is "ruining" a kid's chances at a great life, then our civilization is doomed anyway, tbh.

This isn't a fair statement.

Shared cultural connections are how communities are formed.  When someone forces another to live outside those cultural connections, they can't be expected to have a relationship on the same level.  And it's not "everyone must watch X show", but having a passing knowledge of the activity and major highlights helps develop those connections.  It has been this way throughout history.  Not being familiar with your town or civilization's customs, celebrations, stories.......these mark you as an outsider.

I think it's wrong to isolate a child from their larger community, outside of the sub-community the parent has hand picked.  It means there are feelings of inadequacy and missing out when they start trying to branch out on their own.  It's also quite telling when a parent defends that decision by using words like "inane", "doomed', and other sour-grapes* vocabulary.  These are the kids that are more likely to grow up and reject the isolation their parent forced on them for 18 years, leaving them bitter.  It also means the parent rejected 18 years of guidance and conversation that they could have used the opportunity to teach and connect with their kids.

 

Like it or not, television and media is part of our society. It gives us a variety of shared experiences.  We talk about where we were when 9/11 happened, or a character on screen we really connected with.  It gives us phrases like 'jump the shark' and 'you're toast' and 'gaslight'. But sure.  Pretend there's no value in understanding these connections.  Pretend there's no value in your kid connecting with others, even if by having a similar/comparable interest (i.e., "I'm not into Pokemon but I want to build everything Phineas & Ferb do").  Keep pretending.  It may even get you somewhere.  I'm just not sure it's where you want to be.

 

 

 

 

 

*pop-culture reference, circa Aesop

[SKL]

I agree that there's value in shared experiences, but there's also value in diverse experiences.  I think all kids can benefit from the understanding that different kids bring different things to the table.

OP's child reads a lot, so she has a lot to share.  In addition, I'm surprised nobody knew about Matilda, which, besides being a popular book, is a kid movie my kids have in their collection.  Maybe it's not only OP's kid who needs more cultural exposure.

My kids used to ask me why we didn't do xyz that their friends did.  I would explain that we chose to do other things instead.  They had a lot to bring.  So much more exposure to international cultures and classic films and books, among other things.

[Dmmetler]

What I did when L was younger was that we'd go to the library and used bookstore and read through all those tv tie in books. It gave enough background into the characters to understand what was going on.  Front-loading things like who the characters in Spongebob were or which colors which princess wore and how Hannah and Miley were the same person helped my kid who was doomed to be socially ackward anyway at least be able to find common ground instead of trying to turn the playground into the Magic Tree House or Little House on the Prairie (which might have worked with the 2nd graders...but not with the 3 yr olds!)

At about your DD's age, L discovered TV tropes as a way to get pop culture knowledge without having to bother to take the time to watch the shows, and still uses it that both to have baseline knowledge about other's interests-and to decide what is worth watching.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Dmmetler

[Momto6inIN]

40 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

This isn't a fair statement.

Shared cultural connections are how communities are formed.  When someone forces another to live outside those cultural connections, they can't be expected to have a relationship on the same level.  And it's not "everyone must watch X show", but having a passing knowledge of the activity and major highlights helps develop those connections.  It has been this way throughout history.  Not being familiar with your town or civilization's customs, celebrations, stories.......these mark you as an outsider.

I think it's wrong to isolate a child from their larger community, outside of the sub-community the parent has hand picked.  It means there are feelings of inadequacy and missing out when they start trying to branch out on their own.  It's also quite telling when a parent defends that decision by using words like "inane", "doomed', and other sour-grapes* vocabulary.  These are the kids that are more likely to grow up and reject the isolation their parent forced on them for 18 years, leaving them bitter.  It also means the parent rejected 18 years of guidance and conversation that they could have used the opportunity to teach and connect with their kids.

 

Like it or not, television and media is part of our society. It gives us a variety of shared experiences.  We talk about where we were when 9/11 happened, or a character on screen we really connected with.  It gives us phrases like 'jump the shark' and 'you're toast' and 'gaslight'. But sure.  Pretend there's no value in understanding these connections.  Pretend there's no value in your kid connecting with others, even if by having a similar/comparable interest (i.e., "I'm not into Pokemon but I want to build everything Phineas & Ferb do").  Keep pretending.  It may even get you somewhere.  I'm just not sure it's where you want to be.

 

 

 

 

 

*pop-culture reference, circa Aesop

I'm not sure why the tone and why the untrue assumptions about how my relationships with my kids are turning out.

I don't think people who choose differently than me are wrong. Or are harming their kids in any way. It would be nice if you had extended the same courtesy to me.

I guess I didn't realize it's controversial to call most TV shows "inane".

My hyperbole about civilization being doomed is equal to the hyperbole in the OP and PP about screwing up your kids/ruining them.

Peace out.

[mommyoffive]

For a bit my kids only watch dvds, then we moved on to just PBS.  This is basically still where we are.  With our age span of kids it is hard to find shows that are good for everyone.  We have dabbled in a few but nothing regularly.  My kids are so busy during the school year that we don't have time for TV really.  In summer we usually try to watch a bunch of movies or tv shows.  

[frogger]

Honestly, it was very much a shared culture when we all had three channels but that just isn't the case anymore. There are too many options. A lot of kids have zero interest in t.v. and get bored watching shows. A tiktok is about right to keep the attention span. 

A child's theater group is going to have different viewing preferences than the high school football team. You just have to learn to adapt to the group you are in. 

[Laura Corin]

My children grew up overseas.  We had some DVDs, but their awareness of the programmes that people in their home countries were watching was close to nil.  Yes, there were moments after we moved to one of their passport countries when they were clueless about the references.  But they had gained so much other richness in their lives from not spending hours on TV, that true friends learned to appreciate their different perspective.  I wouldn't worry.

[Terabith]

My youngest has an anxiety disorder, and she finds narrative tension in movies and tv shows to be impossible to deal with, but she watches a TON of YouTube, including some that is about movie and tv shows.  It gives her enough background knowledge to not seem completely ignorant.  But she’s had pretty much free rein on YouTube since age seven, which doesn’t work for a lot of families.  

[Mona]

My YA children grew up without TV for the most part, but we had Roku, Netflix (remember the red envelopes in the mai), and internet, so we were able to curate what they watched. My dd was at a gymnastics class once when she was about 9yo and another girl asked her if she like Justin Bieber. My dd had no idea who he was and the girl was dumbfounded by that. Her mother explained that at school there was team Justin and then the group that didn’t like him which she was on. I told her that we didn’t have TV so my dd really didn’t have any idea who he was, so she said well I guess you can be on my team then. 😂 She survived w/o Justin Beiber. 

[catz]

15 hours ago, Pintosrock said:

 

My kid signed up for a theater class this summer,  which she LOVES. The problem is they end every class with a game like charades, except you talk to give clues. Since she doesn't watch TV, my kid is TERRIBLE at guessing the other kids' characters. Today, she decided to be Matilda, which no one, not even the teacher could guess (but her clues were very obvious, if you've read Roald Dahl). 

 

I have not read all the responses but I had/have theater kids and this is completely bizarre to me.  Both because a lot of the theater kids we have mixed with are also lit nerds.  But also because Matilda is extremely popular Broadway musical that just had a movie version come out on Netflix in the past year.  It's so fun.  SO many youth and community theaters are doing it.  All the theater nerd kids in our parts know this story and music inside and out and have read the books over and over.  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach are other junior musical versions my kids have been in.  

I don't think your kid is lacking or in trouble.  Small sample size and those kids are the clueless ones if you ask me.  Roald Dahl books are a mainstay.  My kids got more interested in pop culure stuff later than most but are definitely culturally literate.  We've never had cable and came to streaming late.  We did watch certain movies and series as a family.  Often after reading "the book" version lol.

ETA - I've never thought technology or TV or movies are intrisically bad though.  I did enforce tech limits when my kids were younger than about 12-13 and slowly released the breaks with rules from there.   My oldest kid just graduated with a degree in computer science (both my spouse and I have 2 tech degrees each).  Keeping him entirely away from tech would have been a very sad losing battle lol.  A 9 year old is still very young though.  For me, I love SOME things, but it needs to have really intelligent writing, high production value and convincing actors to engage me.

Edited June 28, 2023 by catz

[theelfqueen]

I'm going to come in and say, I do think this cultural literacy has value, especially for homeschooled kids. They already have a division from peers from their lack of shared classroom experience. (They don't ride the bud with their friends and eat in the cafeteria and get assigned all the same reading and go to the Scholastic book fair and...) 

I made an effort to expose my kids to media that their peers were into when it was age appropriate. But we are a pretty media friendly family.  I bought them books I thought were silly but that their scout patrol liked or the movie that everyone at youth group was talking about ...or the music everyone in their dojo begged to be played during workouts  or encouraged them to Play pokemon and later D&D ... or whatever. 

I think introducing some films and shows won't hurt and may help her to find connections. 

 

[El...]

I made a list of culturally relevant movies and shows, and have been ticking them off, but I keep adding to the list. 

It really is impossible to be "literate" now that there's SO much being produced every day. Netflix blew any sort of canon out of the water, I think. 

I really went into the weeds with my list (Gilligan's Island, Mission Impossible, Star Trek, Jaws, Pinkie and the Brain...). And some things on it are in our family canon (Hogan's Heroes, The Hunt for Red October...).  They don't need to watch every episode. It took about 4 episodes of The Jetsons to feel done. 

It's been fun, mostly.

[Grace Hopper]

13 hours ago, Grace Hopper said:

Well Matilda is a pretty hot Broadway musical right now so imo it’s not a stellar showing by her theater classmates. 

Quoting myself to add that y’all might want to watch the recently released movie musical version of this, it’s quite well done. 

[kirstenhill]

I feel like there's a lot more fragmentation now.  Every now and then something will pop up as a big hit (I'm thinking about, say, the movie Encanto a couple years ago, when it seemed like any kid we met would be singing "We don't talk about Bruno."), but now there are some kids obsessed with Tik Tok or certain YouTube channels, some that are watching everything Disney+ puts out, some are just watching whatever random thing on Netflix.  So there's no guarantee with anything you would want to watch that any given group of kids will know about it.  My younger boys are really into Star Wars shows, superhero movies, and have also watched every season of "Avatar the Last Air Bender" and "Phineas and Ferb"...those two are both older shows but still a fair number of kids like them.  But they don't have TikTok and only watch a few science/engineering/math channels on YouTube...so if people are into some other thing they probably don't know about it. They just "own it" that they like certain things and find other people that like those things too.

I think if you were looking to get your most bang for your buck/time, there are generally a lot of widely popular things on Disney+, and "classics" like all the older Disney and Pixar movies that most kids would know even if they aren't the most popular thing.

 

[Farrar]

I think the biggest thing you can do is not say no to or ban things that your kids specifically ask to see in order to connect to their specific peers unless you have a reason. Like, if their peers are all playing CoD at age 9, please feel zero guilt saying no. But if it's that they're all into a particular movie, video game, music artist, Tiktoker, etc. then I'd urge you to find ways to say yes, even if that means putting limits on it. 

I second what everyone is saying about how it's not TV shows these days very often. A lot of teens I know don't even watch TV at all. It's more fragmented. But cultural literacy happens naturally for kids when you don't restrict them too much. You don't need to do much.

 

[MEmama]

1 hour ago, Terabith said:

My youngest has an anxiety disorder, and she finds narrative tension in movies and tv shows to be impossible to deal with, but she watches a TON of YouTube, including some that is about movie and tv shows.  It gives her enough background knowledge to not seem completely ignorant.  But she’s had pretty much free rein on YouTube since age seven, which doesn’t work for a lot of families.  

Same, movies were impossible for DS when he was younger—too much emotion and sound. He would never watch TV if we didn’t watch as a family; we didn’t curb YouTube or internet either and he watches a ton of videos—but they all educational/related to his special interests. We share those, too. 
 

Different kids and families benefit from different things. 

[2squared]

19 minutes ago, Farrar said:

I think the biggest thing you can do is not say no to or ban things that your kids specifically ask to see in order to connect to their specific peers unless you have a reason. Like, if their peers are all playing CoD at age 9, please feel zero guilt saying no. But if it's that they're all into a particular movie, video game, music artist, Tiktoker, etc. then I'd urge you to find ways to say yes, even if that means putting limits on it. 

I second what everyone is saying about how it's not TV shows these days very often. A lot of teens I know don't even watch TV at all. It's more fragmented. But cultural literacy happens naturally for kids when you don't restrict them too much. You don't need to do much.

 

This is my exact opinion as well. You don’t want your kids to feel like an outsider or for others to perceive them as an outsider.  That makes for a very long, lonely childhood. 

[easypeasy]

If *I* had it to do over again, I'd have let my kids watch Nickelodeon (god, how I hated Sponge Bob) and the Disney Channel. In today's terms, I'd let my kids watch whatever YouTuber was crazy popular.

ASSUMING none of those things were damaging to my kid's psyche (as in, not all YouTubers...).

We DID watch tv and movies, but it was a carefully curated list that I put together. Things that were uplifting, encouraging, intellectual, lots of teamwork, and zero snark/fighting amongst siblings/no boycrazy stuff. My kids are well-voiced in quality television programming, lolololol!! They did watch big, blockbuster movies which, oddly enough, a lot of their friends didn't watch bc their parents would send them to watch cable tv instead of going to the theater to see movies.

The result is that my kids felt really left out in a lot of conversations - and this carried right into college when their friends were sitting around sharing "omg, remember this show?" and everyone would join in, laughing at the absurdity of whatever show they'd watched when they were 10, but my kids had nothing to contribute and when their friends would notice, it was awkward to explain they'd never watched this-or-that show. It made us (the parents) sound a lot more controlling than we ever intended to be. We simply didn't have cable, so my kids never asked to watch those shows & I never brought it up! lolol

So, if I had it to do all over again, I'd let them watch. I'd still have limits in place bc too much screen time for developing minds isn't helpful, but I'd let them watch, even if I had to grind my teeth through a Sponge Bob episode so my kids could laugh about it with their friends at gymnastics class, or camp, or whatever.

[easypeasy]

I read other replies now and totally agree that, today, it's a lot more fragmented. I think that's one of the big negatives to all this on-demand television or vlogs. It's made "water cooler talk" a lot harder bc we have fewer shared experiences.

I remember, as a kid, watching Disney Family on Sunday evenings and talking with all my friends at school about it the next morning.

I don't think today's kids get to have that experience and that's a huge loss.

[dirty ethel rackham]

4 hours ago, Dmmetler said:

At about your DD's age, L discovered TV tropes as a way to get pop culture knowledge without having to bother to take the time to watch the shows, and still uses it that both to have baseline knowledge about other's interests-and to decide what is worth watching.

That was my kids' way of gaining cultural literacy.  My oldest happened upon it and voraciously read up on stuff, because that is who he is.  Not so much to fit in, but more like an amateur cultural anthropologist - looking at something from the outside.  

We didn't watch anything with commercials aimed at children because I feel strongly that advertising to children is manipulative.  My kids didn't die from not knowing SpongeBob or Miley.  We watched a lot of PBS, Discovery channel (back when it was quality documentaries, not the crap they are producing now) and videos from the library.  I knew my kids were paying attention to those commercials when my oldest, who was 4 at the time, piped up that he knew what his uncle could do for his gray hair.  He could use Just For Men hair color. 🤣  

My older two kids had little difficulty finding peers who respected the diversity of interests, mostly within the homeschool community, but also the kids who were unlikely to be popular in school.  Outside of that, my kids weren't really interested in connecting with with the cool kids steeped in popular culture because they saw behaviors and attitudes that bothered them ... meanness, disrespect for others.  I'm not saying that popular culture causes that, but in their experience, belonging to the "in" crowd meant not only understanding pop culture references but also adopting those qualities that made them uncomfortable.  

My youngest could make friends wherever she went.  She always had a posse of kids around her.  She, too, saw the meanness in the "popular" kids.  But she moved with much more ease among different groups of people.  She is also the one who noticed that she was "weird" (she was the least weird out of all of us) and wanted to be "normal."  It wasn't so much what media she consumed, but wanting to shed the "stigma" of being a homeschooler.  She is my kid who went to high school and heard all sorts of comments like "you're so normal for a homeschooler."  As an adult, she is encountering situations where she lacks the cultural reference for something, but it is usually a school-related experience, not so much media related.

 

[Corraleno]

The whole "My children don't watch TV, they read literature and paint and and do crafts while other people's children watch mindless crap" really bugs me. Believe it or not, it's possible for kids to watch TV (or YouTube or Netflix or whatever) and read literature, make art, go to museums, etc. My kids watched loads of nature documentaries and PBS art & culture shows, but they also watched The Simpsons and Sponge Bob and Big Bang Theory and tons of other stuff. Someone upthread mentioned Avatar the Last Air Bender — that was a brilliant show that my whole family loved.

Somehow, despite watching plenty of "junk" TV, my kids still found time to read books, make art, study music, build projects, frequent the Natural History and Science Museums, etc. Not only did years of watching Sponge Bob not prevent DS from reading Greek literature (in Greek), but when he was the awkward, ADHD, homeschooled freshman on his college varsity team, and for some random reason Sponge Bob became a source of continuing memes and in-jokes, he not only understood the jokes, he could contribute his own. His love for Battlestar Galactica provided a shared bond with a teammate, who became his best friend and made freshman year less isolated and lonely.

Sometimes people want to be creative or intellectually stimulated, and sometimes they just want to chill out and be entertained. Sometimes you want to read Dostoevsky and other times you just want a quick fun beach read. Sometimes you're in the mood for Mozart and other times you just want put on some boppy 80s music while you clean the house. Sometimes you want to tour Roman archeological sites, and other times you just want to lie by the pool for a week. None of those choices are inherently more moral or virtuous than others.

[Eos]

12 minutes ago, dirty ethel rackham said:

comments like "you're so normal for a homeschooler." 

Ouch.

[Sneezyone]

11 minutes ago, Eos said:

Ouch.

It didn’t read like an endorsement for that approach.