V-Chips for Little Brains : Why bother trying to control the TV? If parents are going to disengage, they may as well go all the way.
I don’t think the V-chip goes far enough. It merely controls what our children watch on television. Why not find a way to implant the computer chips directly into their little brains, to block not just viewing habits, but bad behavior as well? Then we can take the current trend toward no-contact parenting as far as it will go and keep interaction with children to a minimum, which seems to be the way we want it.
Children are not a priority in our society, so why pretend that they are? Why waste precious time and effort on them when, with the flick of a switch, we can turn them off at will? V-chips in little brains will eliminate the trouble it takes to discipline a child, the painstaking effort to actually try to teach her right from wrong. It’s much more tedious to butt heads with them than to let them be, and it is always harder to stick to “no” than it is to just say yes. V-chips will eliminate that problem, make things less messy. Parents won’t have to be afraid of the job any more, won’t even have to be afraid of their children. They won’t be able to blame bad behavior on “Beavis and Butthead,” but they really won’t need to. The trusty computer chip will take care of that.
While we’re at it, why not simplify school? Why not just put kids in front of computers and let them learn at their own pace? It will eliminate a lot of hassle for the teachers forced to interact with them. They can simply cage the students, test them periodically and release them to their happily unengaged parents at the end of the day. Helping with homework will be a thing of the past. When I think of the wasted hours spent with my daughter, singing out times tables over dirty dishes every night, I could scream.
Remembering how I used to do things, I marvel at my inefficiency. Once, when my son was about 4, he announced, pointing to an invisible spot on his arm, that he had Rocky Mountain spotted fever. I started to laugh, wondering where this was coming from, but he was genuinely convinced that he had this disease and didn’t appreciate my making light of his pain.
“I have Rocky Mountain spotted fever,” he insisted, “just like on the television.” That’s when it dawned on me that, although I’d left the little pest in the family room, safely ensconced in front of “Sesame Street,” at some point he’d moved on to more adventurous fare. Sure enough, when I checked, I discovered that my budding hypochondriac had been watching a rerun of “Dr. Kildare,” one in which the Doc had made another brilliant diagnosis of yet another rare disease.
After that, I was forced to the decision that my morning chores would have to wait, that both of our lives would be a lot easier if we watched “Sesame Street” together. We spent countless hours playing childish games with numbers and letters, laughing over Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch. Wasted hours, I now realize, that I could have been spending productively, scrubbing toilets or folding laundry, or maybe even writing the Great American Novel.
Imagine all the time I could have saved, and all I could have accomplished, if only I’d had the V-chip.
