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Friday, August 3, 2007

Who Needs Parenting Skills When I Have This Chip?

posted by on August 3 at 11:56 AM

Pretty soon prying parents could be able to know exactly what their kids are looking at at every moment, thanks to a proposed “super V-chip” that Congress is urging the Federal Communications Commission to develop. The chip would allow parents to screen content on all their children’s devices, including cell phones, laptops, and home computers. Senator Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) said the new technology is necessary because kids these days can access “inappropriate” content on more than just television and (ha!) radio. “It’s an uphill battle for parents trying to protect their kids from viewing inappropriate programming,” he told MediaWeek. “I believe there is a whole new generation of technology that can provide an additional layer of help for these parents.”

The V-chip technology reminds me a lot of another privacy-invading technology touted as a panacea for worried parents: implantable microchips, which would enable parents to keep track of their kids at every moment. A recent abduction has resparked discussion of implantable chips in England; never mind that your child’s odds of getting abducted by a stranger are significantly lower than that they’ll be struck by lightning. Parents want technology to stand in for what parents used to do—talking to their kids, telling them to stay away from online predators, trusting that they’ll listen and learn lessons by experience. When you’re on an electronic leash, you can never get away with anything—and getting away with things is what adolescence, and growing up, is all about. By monitoring our precious children’s every movement (instead of, say, talking to them realistically about the risks of various behaviors and letting them know we trust them to behave reasonably responsibly), we make it impossible for them to learn their lessons the hard way, through experience.

RSS icon Comments

1

As a side bonus, all those chipped children will grown into chipped adults.

Because the complete surrender of every last vestige of privacy is the necessary cost of freedom. Now get in line for fingerprinting!

Posted by flamingbanjo | August 3, 2007 12:03 PM
2

If it makes you feel better, most parents will probably be too lazy/ignorant to use the technology anyway.

"But a 2004 study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2004 found that only 15 percent of parents have ever used the V-Chip. The Ad Council put the usage figures even lower--at 8 percent."

http://news.com.com/The+second+coming+of+the+V-Chip/2100-1041_3-6061580.html

Posted by tsm | August 3, 2007 12:04 PM
3

Ah well, if nothing else this should bring back the time-honored tradition of hiding your porn mags under your mattress...

Posted by COMTE | August 3, 2007 12:09 PM
4

Does anyone really think this march to the police state can be stopped?

For everyone saying how they want privacy our society seems to embrass reality TV, video footage of every single moment of our lives and who knows whatelse an awful lot. A chip installed at birth is just a natural step to making sure we are easy to find all the time.

No one wants privacy, we want to be on display all the time.

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger | August 3, 2007 12:20 PM
5

The funny thing is that it's not technically feasible. You have to get all the content makers on earth to flag their content as inappropriate or not. Good luck with that. And even if you somehow managed that, how long before someone rights a quick utility to remove the flags?

Posted by Andrew | August 3, 2007 12:20 PM
6

@2 I don't think it's actually laziness or ignorance. It's obviousness. A TV is big and loud and parents can pretty easily figure out what the hell their kids are watching.

Regarding online stuff, I do have to say that parental overrides for password protection on e-mail, IMs, etc., are not a bad idea. In dealing with a 15 year old runaway recently, and also trying to find out who the bad apples trying to teach him that whoring in Volunteer Park ain't a bad lifestyle are, going through his computer and cell phone were immensely helpful.

Posted by Gitai | August 3, 2007 12:22 PM
7

Ugh.. Equating v-chip technology with implanted tracking devices is a bit over the top and scare-tactic-y, dontchathink?

One allows parents to filter the constant stream of raw content that is flowing towards their kids at all times, the other is a surgically implanted tracking device, and a silly paranoid fantasy. Sorry if I don't see how these things are equivalent.

The telephone stands in for the once time-honored practice of talking to people to their faces. The wheel stands in for walking. Fire stands in for eating things raw, the way nature intended.

Technology isn't evil, people are evil. One can be a good parent, and take advantage of tools that make that job easier. The two are not mutually exclusive.

There have always been new ways to keep tabs on your kids, and kids have always found ways around them using their natural and healthy rebellion skills. This is no different. (I'm talking about the v-chip, not the ridiculous tracking implant idea.)

Posted by Whatever | August 3, 2007 12:28 PM
8

I'm sure glad that I learned my lessons the hard way, ECB. Getting raped by that child molester posing as a teenager online who lent a sympathetic ear in a chat room when I was depressed and "befriended" me was sure better than my parents interfering and monitoring my online activity.

Posted by Huh? | August 3, 2007 12:49 PM
9

I agree with TSM at #2. Most people are too fucking stupid and lazy to implement controls such as the V-chip. I had a discussion in a different forum with some tardstick who had the opinion that to protect her kids from all the evils on TV should require forcing ALL the networks to just stop with all the adult content.

I and several other people reminded her that her own goddamn TV had the V-chip in it, and all she had to do was properly set the permissions. That wasn't good enough for her; she refused to budge from her dippy belief that the networks should just clean up their act, and too bad for us adults who can handle some nudity, cussing, and gratuitous violence on the boob tube.

Posted by Dr_Awesome | August 3, 2007 12:59 PM
10

the super v-chip, because chris hansen can't be everywhere.

Posted by infrequent | August 3, 2007 1:03 PM
11

Dr. A:

I'm also guessing she wouldn't be any more open to the even simpler concept of - JUST TURNING THE DAMNED TV OFF!

Posted by COMTE | August 3, 2007 1:15 PM
12

@11,

Or, better yet, throwing it out the window.

Unfortunately, if most parents are too lazy to implement a V-chip, they're definitely too lazy to teach their kids about responsibility and reasonable measures for self-protection. How else do you explain kids getting roped in by online predators? Is it not as easy as explaining to them that that cool 19-year-old they're chatting with is actually a fat, ugly 40 year old? That would've been enough to influence me.

Posted by keshmeshi | August 3, 2007 1:37 PM
13

I'm gonna get hell for saying this, but the decline of parenting is one of the consequences of two income families and single parents. Parents literally don't have the time to spend with their kids.

Posted by Gomez | August 3, 2007 2:10 PM
14

Gomez, you may be right (eek). Parents who work all the time and single parents will readily admit that they don't have enough time with their kids. But parenting isn't about hovering over your kid all the time. It's about instilling a presence that follows them around, even when you're not with them. And about letting go of this overwhelming desire that parents have these days to be "friends" with their kid. Parenting is about setting boundaries, enforcing those limits, providing consistency and security and unconditional love - it's not about being cool in your child's eyes.

These days you see kids sassing back to their parents in public...I NEVER would have done that...I just KNEW better than to even try - it's called respect. And you can't expect your kid to respect you until you start acting like a goddamn adult and PARENT them.

Posted by Corliss | August 3, 2007 2:28 PM
15

Yeah, I'm gonna go to hell for saying this but I kind of agree with Gomez. An eight hour day with a one hour lunch is 45 hours a week, plus an hour commute takes you up to at least 50 and, depending on where you live, as many as 55 hours a week at work. During which time your kids are being raised by society rather than parents. And we live in a sick fucking society.

Posted by Judah | August 3, 2007 3:18 PM
16

I disagree with Gomez. People's greed is what causes these problems. wanting to have it all without sacrifice only to realize that the sacrifice is with your kids, and most likely too late.

two income parents are a result of greed. the greed of ataining more of what you think you deserve as a middle class family.

it's consumptive desires outpacing income realities.

Posted by Bellevue Ave | August 3, 2007 3:32 PM
17

@Bellevue Ave: I agree with you to some extent. I think the costs of this country and the slow growth of wages has contributed equally to the prevalance of the 2 income household.

Posted by Original Monique | August 3, 2007 3:39 PM
18

@16 - Greed? Nonsense. Today, thanks to skyrocketing real estate, health care, and college costs, being a two-income family is about economic necessity in the majority of cases, not personal whim. In fact, the mere existence of other two-income families places pressure on every other household to go the same route, since the double-income folks' increased wealth gives them an edge in the market for these things.

Posted by tsm | August 3, 2007 3:51 PM
19

That's like some Calvinist Protestant morality, that you're supposed to suffer, or "learn lessons the hard way" while growing up, right? Whereas glorifying the transgression game -- "getting away with things" -- that teenagers play it more Roman Catholic, I suppose.

But since I'm neither kind of Christian, I have no intention of raising my kid based on either the hairshirt or authority/anti-authority models. And when you leave all that crap behind, then there isn't any reason not to do everything you can to spare your kid any hard lessons or to set them up to "break away" by defying your stupid rules. I don't think suffering as child "builds character." It turns you into an asshole is what it does.

The particular technologies they are proposing here are half-baked, to say the least, but the goal of a painless and conflict-free childhood is something I can certainly get behind. And we probably have the technology to do it, or at least get close.

Posted by elenchos | August 3, 2007 4:03 PM
20
two income parents are a result of greed.

Oh, that's just some freezedried bullshit right there. Tell you what, sparky, just for shits and grins you try supporting three people on a $30k/year income; include the cost of health insurance. Then pretend someone gets hurt and figure in deductibles, meds and so on. Let me know how that works out for you.

"Greedy." Fuck sake.

Posted by Judah | August 3, 2007 4:43 PM
21

Hey how about this judah, I DONT TRY TO SUPPORT 3 PEOPLE ON 30K A YEAR!

Greed and desire are what leads to fuckheads buying a TV so that they can complain about what is on TV. And they complain about what is on TV because they have to have both people work two jobs to afford said TV and leave their kids to their own devices.

Whats the solution? DONT WORK SO HARD OR LONG FOR SHIT THAT HAS MORE NEGATIVE THAN GOOD OR dont complain when you do without.

How about this, instead of people buying things, or feelinging entiteled to certain luxuries of life, take a sober and earnest look at what makes you happy. Dont spend more than you need to on disposable goods and reap the benefits of parenting with one staying at home.

The world isn't some 1950s movie where men work cause they want to conquer the world and women stay at home because it is for the greater glory of the man and his offspring. Women work because women need/want to work to achieve certain things in their life like independence and buying makeup and paying for rachel ray cookbooks, or cable tv. etc etc.

When the question of "why dont you stay at home" comes up the answer should almost always be "cause I want things that a single income cant pay for." like what? housing? vacations? electronics? cars?

if you can balance a checkbook, you can have a single income family.

Posted by Bellevue Ave | August 3, 2007 5:00 PM
22

19, sparing your child hardships like polio and sexual abuse is not the same as sparing them the hardships of never seeing their parents nor being deprived of entertainment devices or fashionable clothes.

Posted by Bellevue Ave | August 3, 2007 5:02 PM
23

more succinctly put: you live with the decisions you make in life and its fruitless to complain about them later while you do nothing about it.

Posted by Bellevue Ave | August 3, 2007 5:20 PM
24

Or hey, how bout this Bellevue Ave: how 'bout you kiss my hairy butthole?

The point of having two incomes isn't greed: it's security. Without a decent social safety net, I need to have a certain amount of money in order to ensure that me, my wife, and our kid are going to be okay in the event that something really shitty happens. And shitty things happen all the time. Compared to the the cost of housing, medical insurance, basic clothing and fresh food the cost of the TV is, frankly, incidental. Indeed, as long as we're maintaining this lovely trade deficit with China, most of the stuff you scorn as pricey luxuries can be had for practically nothing; and as far as that goes you're not arguing economics, you're arguing bullshit 1960s consumer "morality", which is really just an aesthetic cooked up by pseudo intellectual faux-transcendentalists to try and piss off their parents.

Posted by Judah | August 3, 2007 5:27 PM
25

Yes, it's catastrophic personal events that make families have dual incomes. as IF THAT DIDNT HAPPEN BEFORE WHEN THERE WERE SINGLE INCOME FAMILIES!

well, if you want to rest on that idea then i hope you enjoy the results.

Posted by Bellevue Ave | August 3, 2007 5:31 PM
26

and honestly to say that discretionary spending has no relation to people working long hours rather than saying it's all to establish security is ridiculous. under your system people would then shun things like expensive cars, TV, cell phones, etc etc for even more security but it is greed, the want of more for nothing in return, that causes people to extend themselves past the point of security.

tell me what disposable goods have to do with security? tell me why you cant cut those out and establish more security?

Posted by Bellevue Ave | August 3, 2007 5:38 PM
27

Dude, are you having me on? Because the point you're arguing is patently absurd. I mean really: read a history book. Most families, particularly in cities, have been two income families for about the last 300 years.

Posted by Judah | August 3, 2007 5:41 PM
28

Yeah, and the standard of living has rose greatly in the past 300 years. so why the bitching about it now?

Posted by Bellevue Ave | August 3, 2007 6:11 PM
29

Without having met me, you have no way of knowing what does and does not make me happy. So naturally you'll just have to take my word for it on this: having nice things makes me happy. Deliberately giving up what makes you happy is kind of pathological. Especially if you're depriving yourself just because you think suffering is a virtue (hello bike commuters).

I got an automated cat litter box and it is awesome. And a robot that vacuums the house when I'm not home. And I want more of that. Like the online robot that pays my bills without me having to do it each month. It's like my dream of living like the Jetsons is coming true, bit by bit. I'm not complaining.

Having the option to use some automated child raising tools would be just the thing as far as I'm concerned. Because I don't think that more difficult, more painful, and less efficient equates with virtue, purity or beauty.

Suffering for no good reason is stupid and who wants to role model stupid to their kid?

Posted by elenchos | August 3, 2007 6:20 PM
30

how do you define quality of life? time or goods?

are people more or less secure than they were in the past?

the problem is people want it all for nothing. the definition of all, and nothing need to change to reflect the reality of the world today.

Posted by Bellevue Ave | August 3, 2007 6:20 PM
31

elenchos, do you think it's unfair that you have to take 55 hours a week out of your life to secure those things?

it's the people who want those things, and complain about working to get them that bug me.

back to judah, if the single income home has always been a myth, then why is spending time with your kids somehow the new cool thing to do when it's likely our parents spent the same amount of time with us?

the situation hasnt changed, the expectations of parents has.

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32

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33

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