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Wil Wheaton's Geek in Review: The Damn Parents Today

suicidegirls.com — "there is, in fact, an entire generation of parents, about my age or just a little older, who are substituting technology for parenting. As a result, there's an entire generation of children who are overstimulated and undersocialized, and in some cases heavily medicated, because their damn parents would rather distract them with a DVD or videogame"

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  • fizzatbeyond, on 10/12/2007, -2/+38Wait, you mean I'm suppose to pay attention to my son! no one ever told me that!!

    Seriously though I know exactly how you feel, I get the same feeling whenever I see these parent.
    • synwolf, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I can't help but feel that all the recent research into childrens' learning that goes into shows like Blues' Clues and Sesame Street could be shown up by parenting instincts that have been there for millennia...
    • ts8lemonade, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15As well as the commercial he mentioned there's another that I find even more disturbing. It's a commercial for Cox that starts off with a little boy watching television. As the commercial progresses the narrator says something to the effect of, "This is generation Cox, who will not be limited by something as simple as location." Next it proceeds to show the little boy watching a DVD in a car, the DVD being of the same penguin character as the TV show he was watching earlier. Finally, the commercial ends with the boy being pushed through the mall while holding a small, almost cell phone like device and watching the same penguin on it.

      That commercial really gets to me every time I see it. Have our lives really gotten to the point where we can't go minutes at a time without having some form of entertainment there to subdue us? Back in the day people actually did other things than watch TV and become zombies. I really am worried as to the future of society, because if this trend continues the movie "Idiocracy" will look like a documentary ahead of its time.
    • bat-21, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Part of the problem is today's parents are wimps. They often choose the path of least resistance.
    • DildoOreilly, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4Damn parents of yesterday, filling their kids heads with superstitious beliefs of disturbing stories of hell and damnation and devils and eternal suffering and ramming them down the throats of unsuspecting children.

      Whats worse?!
    • member57, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6"Have our lives really gotten to the point where we can't go minutes at a time without having some form of entertainment there to subdue us?"

      Yep, look at all the assholes walking around yakking on cell phones for hours on end. If an alien landed, he would think that all humans walked around with one hand held to the side of their head. Even better for the more connected human, we now have blue tooth earsets... For some reason teenagers, soccer moms and metrosexuals believe they need to be chatting with their BFFs all the time, constant entertainment. Does anybody just sit and listen to silence or turn the radio off while driving? Don't get me wrong, I love technology, but I also believe in moderation.
    • member57, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@ts8lemonade

      That's quite disturbing....
    • Armitage2k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2My wife and I just got a new car.... minivan actually, with a DVD player.... this goes on when we have a long trip to Pennsylvania to see her sister.... or when we go on vacation.... any drive that will be taking more than an hour or so, if the kids want to watch something, they can let us know, and we turn it on....

      For those shorter trips to the store, or doctors, or around town, they know better than to ask about it...
  • Alywait, on 10/12/2007, -6/+37Its not a new thing, its just easier now with more portable technology. In one of my university classes, the teacher played us the original radio edition of War of the World. After a few minutes of sitting and listening no one could stay still any longer. People started talking, checking their email, anything else they could do because they just couldn't sit there and do nothing. Back in the 20's people sat for hours just listening to the radio and we couldn't even go for 5 minutes. A room full of 19 and 20 year olds acting like children.
    • TLAKABM, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12Ummmmm, so how do they sit through lectures?

      And I'm sure in the 20's they didn't sit there for hours not moving or saying a word.
    • sishgupta, on 10/12/2007, -6/+7I don't know if that is the same issue as the article, though I do think that it is related to some extent.

      In this age we are very used to being bombarded by an incredible mass of information. So much so that people who have grown up with this are quite easily bored when we aren't having multiple streams of information coming at us.

      I multi-task through most of my classes because some profs have a repetitive style (especially if the rest of the class is new to a concept). As a result, I find that if I am not doing something else in between concepts I end up falling asleep or zoning out.

      If one of my profs played the radio version of war of the worlds I would be doing other things also. The first reason is that I think the story is (quite) boring, second reason is that I have heard it before, and the third is because that type of thing isn't enough to stimulate me. I can listen and do other things.

      Yes, it is a product of the way we currently live, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I see it as more of an evolution of information or rather the way we receive information. There is going to be a period of adjustment while people new to this adapt and while people who are born into this learn to balance it.
    • ru1dt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10i think there's something to say for being able to pay attention.
    • lorean, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4In my course on second language teaching we covered attention span throughout different age groups.
      Adults usually have an attention span of 45-50 minutes, afterwards they need a break or their mind starts wandering.
    • Anonymous3, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Ever had a lecturer restart a movie multiple times because someone started talking or a mobile went off after he politely did the "I'd appreciate it if..." spiel beforehand? That works after about 5 minutes of "Earth, home to over 6 billion blah blah blah. Earth, home to over..."
  • Amplix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22It really is frustrating to see this type of thing go on in public and not want to do anything. - Good article.
    I liked the second comment at that page: "Balance is hard. Lazy is easy." - imclever
    Too true :[
  • chi1thook, on 10/12/2007, -47/+6Stupid talentless fame whore.
    • silverchrysalis, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19well, at least he writes more intriguing statements than you.
    • kidc, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18@chi1thook

      Wow! Seriously.. wow... you are ***** in the head. Look at his profile, look at all the anti-Wil articles he dugg AND submitted and the comments he made about Wil. Seriously dude you need help, normal people do not act like this.
    • chi1thook, on 10/12/2007, -16/+3It's spam and I'm sick of it. Does he really have to summit his blog four or five times a week about Linux, radio programming, television and other things he doesn't know anything about. He doesn't even give a clear conceptual understanding of his studies. He's living off what people told him to say and do on a tv show twenty years ago. If he had any insights or ability he still be working in hollywood not pestering this website. The Wheaton spam and the political spam is the stupidest crap on diggs and if he keeps insulting me by submitting his crappy talentless work than I'll enjoy insulting him.
    • trilobite, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Is somebody forcing you to read it? You know you don't have to if you don't want to.
    • chi1thook, on 10/12/2007, -16/+4For every wheaton undeserved blog there's a dozen better stories buried and harder to find.
    • Stonekeeper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hi Patrick! Thanks for stopping by!
  • DeskFlyer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16Article was spot on.

    Reminds me of my sister. She's 28 and has two sons, 1 and 5. Any time the 5 y.o. starts running around the house like crazy or starts whining or throwing ***** all over the place, she simply seats him in front of the computer and starts a video game for him. Bam! Insta-peace and quiet. Unreal...
    • Litespeed, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14Yeah, it's the path of least resistance. I think most parents would be guilty of using the TV or computer as a babysitter at some time in their kid's lives, but when it becomes habitual, then there's going to be trouble later on.
    • Anonymous3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6You mean Unreal Tournament, surely?
    • Gutterpunk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Meh, its all a matter of perception. I have 2 kids, one is 3 and the other is 1. Unfortunatly, the oldest is autistic.

      At home she watch 1 Dora everyday, before she goes to bed. Not because it calm her down or anything, just because she has her little routine (dora, brush her teeth, go to bed for 15 minutes, get up to drink water, go back to bed)

      But when we go places, like for christmas or whatever, we bring some Dora DVDs. She doesn't watch them in the car, or on a portable dvd player, but at whatever home we go too, and only when she is getting restless (which takes 2 or 3 hours usually). We did get a portable DVD for when we fly though... 9 hours plane ride is a killer for her.

      Point is that I am certain that my whole familly think that we sedate her with Dora 24/7, which we don't. Technology has its benefit in raising a child, but its probably no one's business how some people use it, even if we all know that some use it incorectly. But i'll be damned if this leads to "electronic child protection acts" that prevent them from playing video games and makes it akin to spanking children.

      Thing is that the previous generation had a way to deal with restless childs, and it was giving them a good wallop on the side of the head, or to promise them that their father would do it when they got home. 30 something parents cannot do that anymore without being lynched, so they find other ways, which might not be better, but being a parent is getting more and more complicated as everyone (The state and a myriad of child care agency) wants to be their nanny these days.

      Anyway... my daughter speaks french, spanish and english these days because of Dora. Transparenly, as if it was all the same language, but its better than nothing...
    • member57, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Electronic babysitter...
      My kids won't even stop for Dora...
  • TonySki, on 10/12/2007, -23/+6I can't be the only one, who else has seen enough of these Wil Wheaton reviews?
    • hdtvdust, on 10/12/2007, -16/+7No...Bu this is Digg. Not a single one of them are normal, well adjusted human beings. The average Digger ate his lucnh in high school in the bathroom becuase no one would let them sit at their table. Hence, a kid who was surpassed by his lesser stars in Stand By Me and now has to write for a site about women who like to cut themselves just to feel something is a God to them.
    • atbnet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Just because you did, doesn't mean the rest of us did. I ate my lunch in the principal's office!
    • member57, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I like them personally.
  • antivirus88, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2Is this the same Wil Wheaton that was in flubber?

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4668706796617054520&q=roosevelt+rockefeller

    my friend says he is wil wheaton to continue a flubber joke in that movie
  • lemur, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Over stimulated, under socialized, medicated... it's the new Porcupine Tree video:

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=eMBMCB2YeGM
    • ytsebadd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3The Porcupine Tree album, Fear of a Blank Planet was exactly what came to mind when I read this. Great band and interesting view of the direction the next generation's taking.
  • authors, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5I believe many have said the same thing about TV in the 50s and 60s.
    • cliffzdude, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17*****. My childhood TV watching started in the 60's, and let me tell you there wasn't ***** on TV..
      Most markets had 3.25 stations, the .25 was the ***** PBS station. During the summer we had maybe an old school Godzilla movie to watch, while playing with our legos in the morning. Ok, then on to soap operas which we DIDN'T watch. Then in the afternoon there was an hour or so of cartoons, then on to the local and national news. Then came prime time TV, oh how great that ***** was. Damn, until you've watched some of the original content on youtube or the like its hard to remember how ***** the ***** was back then. Video games? Nope. Cable TV? Nope. Ok, we DID play some serious pinball... Saturday mornings were looked forward to all week, dude, 3-4 hours of cartoons and kid shows! Wahooo!!! Of course they sucked, ever see Land of The Lost? Oye-veye...

      Point is, as a kid I would have just drooled at the content available to a kid today, and that's not even taking into account video games and computing. So, what did we do? We went outside and climbed trees, rode our bikes, made and flew kites. For the absolute first time in history its far more interesting and fun for an 8 year old to stay inside during a sunny 85 degree sunny spring day, and for the first time ever a good parent has to kick his kid OUT of the house instead of telling him how much trouble he'll be in if he doesn't come home.

    • member57, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Not much in the 80's either on our 3 channels, we didn't even have PBS. Dukes of Hazard, Dallas and Falcon Crest made up our Friday nights... I was lucky, I had nearly 1500 acres to roam on so I didn't watch much TV. Except ST:TNG.. wink wink nod nod....
  • farcast, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Wait a second - Wil is 34 years old, and has a kid heading off to college soon? So he had a kid when he was 16??? But got married 8 years ago? Is it a stepkid? Something is not adding up here.
    • AngryBacon, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Maybe his kid is a prodigy?
    • gijoel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4He has step children. At least I'm pretty sure he does. Maybe Wil could set you straight on that.
    • wilwheaton, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27Yep. Two stepkids. I don't make an emotional "step" or "biological" distinction, and though I usually make an effort to at least put it in print (to avoid confusion like this) I didn't do it in this column.
    • darkten, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Geez Wil...I didn't realize you were as old as you were...thanks :)

      I know I have some geritol around here somewhere...gah I'm getting up there in the years :)
    • jggr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2And here I was thinking you were just a player.
      /Or a successfully horny teenager.
    • member57, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Holy horse hocky, It's actually Wil Wheaton... I'm 36, BTW. I agree with you, I have a stepson myself, 7 y/o. and he's "my son"
    • Drood, on 11/14/2007, -9/+2It's all very ***** easy for Mr Wheaton when they're not even his kids and he missed the early years.

      Try having a young kid with borderline autism who doesn't listen etc... Then we'll see where you're ***** parenting gets you.

      Stick to talking about Linux and reliving your glory days, *****.
  • m00nstone, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3I have a 4 year old that I have to fight with to keep her away from surfing PBSkids, nickjr etc.all day and she loves video games. The truth is, they gravitate towards it from an early age. She's only 4 and already sending the message: don't get in the way of me and my technology.

    Nevertheless, we made a rule every other night, it's story time before bed, no computer. Will doesn't see the whole picture here.
  • williamdyer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I read Suicide Girls for the interviews. Really.
  • thrallie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1http://www.theadvocates.org/liberator/vol-07-num-01.htm

    He's a libertarian too.
  • rilindo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Wil Weaton is now an old fogey. Welcome to the club, member!
  • kcgirlgeek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7@Lemur Wow, that Porcupine Tree video was powerful. Thanks for posting that.

    I'm 43, a parent (one natural son, two step children, one son, one daughter, all teens). I think maybe my generation was the last one that still had a semi-balanced amount of information technology and good ol' imagination with which to work. I mean, I remember playing Pong and Atari, but I also remember reading a lot of books, climbing trees, riding bikes, and pretending to be The Partridge Family in the basement. :D I don't think my parents would have tolerated my sister and I just vegetating in front of a television all the time with no social interaction.

    Fortunately for me, I had a son who was, and still is, very athletically inclined. Even with all the video games and computer technology, he spent the larger amount of his time outdoors playing ball, skateboarding, rollerblading, etc. But he also played his fair share of video games. In our situation, that was more because I always did. So gaming became an interest that he and I shared. We played a lot of games together. I would say that his mother (yep, me) is probably a lot more addicted to gaming, the internet, and all things technology-related, than he.

    But I am guilty of parking him in front of many Disney movies when he was a pre-schooler. Sometimes, I just needed the quiet time. Albeit when he was that young, I wasn't working outside of the home so we had plenty of time to play together and interact. Yet, after reading that and watching the video that Lemur posted.....I still feel a twinge of guilt.

    I think it is my generation, predominantly, that is guilty of the "technology diversion" tactics. I think it's even more of a temptation to working parents who come home utterly exhausted and not having a lot left emotionally or mentally to give. I think our economy is partly to blame, and credit card debt that necessitates both parents working to be able to even survive....doesn't help matters.

    Technology is really a two-edged sword. But aren't all things that are GOOD, also potentially bad if not enjoyed with moderation, if not used properly? This topic is a little overwhelming to me, because I do see things for many people taking a bad direction. :(
    • member57, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Well said, but I disagree with you about needing both parents to work to get by. We are a single income household, we get by fine. I really don't make as much as I should because of the location. We don't live in a big house, but we live in a great neighborhood. We also don't have new vehicles, the newest is 10 years old, but they are paid for and I do all the repair & normal maintainence. My wife stays at home with our two daughters, 3 and 1. She does some extra stuff for income like babysitting, selling stuff, etc. In contrast we have a couple that are really good friends, and combined income is something like $70,000/ year, great for our area. 2 new cars, nice big house, big screen TV, etc. They are miserable and in debt to their ears. The wife comes over alot and marvels at how peaceful we and our household is, and how we "survive" on one income. Yes, we do without somethings, but we believe that time invested in our kids is way more important than money and material things. I cringe at the thought of shipping our kids to a baby warehouse (daycare) like my stepson had to endure the first 3 years of life until I married his mother. Children are meant to be a reflection of yourself, how can they be when they are spending more time with strangers than their parents? I'm not dogging you, but the way American society has become, we are a very materialistic and greedy nation. I mean what have we come to? Needing a big house, new cars and big screen TV to "survive?"
  • Alywait, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1You can see this even in the different types of movies they are making now. In the last few years there has been a dramatic increase in movies and TV shows for kids, or at least it seems this way.
  • jkearney, on 10/12/2007, -15/+3Wil Weaton is a *****.

    There, I said it.
    • NerdOfPrey, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Sheesh, then pass the story by? Personally I think he has a very entertaining, easy-to-read writing style and tends to engagingly discuss timely, of-the-moment topics.

      Full disclosure: Stand By Me is an exquisite movie masterpiece, and I'll always be grateful for that.
  • SoundScape, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Has this been reposted on any other website? Suicide Girls is blocked at work.
  • deadbaby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I know I'll get dugg down for saying this but it's not just parents. I know a lot of people my age (mid 20's) who are so obsessed with things like video games and movies that their real life suffers. I'm deeply conflicted on it because on the one hand what they're doing is harmless but on the other hand I sort of feel bad they are basically wasting their life. As I've got older I've become less interested in games and movies and I notice my relationships with some of these people have suffered as a result. I have no problem with casual gaming but eventually you have to man up and realize your responsibilities in life are more important than helping some guy in your clan get a drop in WoW. Gaming is basically a drug. It stimulate the mind in powerful ways. Like any other drug you have to use them in moderation or they will begin to consume you.
  • IceZZ, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4>Stupid talentless fame whore.

    I agree. Stupid talentless fame whore.

    Why not post every article that Dvorak writes? This is stupid. Wheaton is riding a long dead horse.
  • darkten, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Heh...just read some of the comments on youtube...the fact that kids/folks are nitpicking the fact that it features an Xbox and not like a 360 or something "next-gen" sorta brings the chilling point home, huh guys? Its like the are focusing on the 100% wrong thing :)
  • glucoseboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Thanks for the heads up Wil. You're article pulls together feelings I've had for a long time now.

    Is there any wonder why studies are showing younger and younger kids (infants, here who can't even walk) being plopped in front of the TV for hours at a time? It's because it's the easy thing to do. But you know, being a good parent isn't easy. It takes work... a lot of it... for a long time.

    It's hard to come home after a long day at work, tired, to then pickup and be a parent to your kids. For me, I try to spend as much time interacting with my two kids, talking with them, reading with them, playing with them, etc. But I buckle down and do it because they're at the age where as a parent, I have the most influence on them; teaching them right from wrong, laying down good habits and work ethic. (They're also at the age where they are still happy to see me when I get home from work and still willingly give me hugs and kisses. I know that will change in a couple of years as they get older).

    We live in a world of convenience, of world of pay-shifting and instant gratification. But raising kids well isn't something that you can do on the "quick and easy"; the quick and easy path leads to the Dark Side.
  • radio1mike, on 10/12/2007, -8/+5Well, Wil- I love ya for your video game commentary. But as for parenting advice, "Stifle it!"

    I am not an advocate for TV-VG-DVD all the time, but I am not left wing nutjob no-industrialized-media-images in my household either. This treating kids like tender flowers is usually espoused by people who don't have children or pay people to deal with their children.

    Newsflash, kiddies... Guess what children did before 1920 in USA???
    They WORKED! On a farm, in a factory around the house whatever. Most children were only schooled to a basic literacy level (whether at home, or the blossoming public school system) and worked to help the family. If you were born in to a well-to-do family who could afford not have you working that's when schooling and this idea of a "leisure childhood" came about.

    I have to re-iterate what some 40-something posters have said: I would have loved this crap when I was a kid. If I was lucky, before a long car ride I'd remember to bring some of my Peanuts paperbacks, my Merlin or a Games magazine.
  • NJMoleman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I work deep in the technology world and NEED to get away from it at least once or twice a year. At these times ever the cell phone gets left behind. With all the hand wringing over global warming and "man causing the end of the world" this generation knows less about what lives in the grass in the backyard then how to download a hacked copy of a soon to be released game. To them silent is deadly. They must have noise at all times and at levels. This is not to say that I didn't (and still do) love my music cranked as loud as possible when I was a younger, but me and my friends could still enjoy the silence on a beach, the stars overhead and talking to one another. We didn't have to text each other from across a room because of the noise the video game. I still have the nights of gaming wher it only stops when the sun comes up, only not as often now. Its the start of another day at work, but right now my mind is already on the swing in the backyard, the birds at the feeder, the food for the ducks in my hand as they land in the pool. I just have to make it through the day and then unplug so that I don't become mechcanical and glazed over, and most importantly, without imagination. For everyone's sake, give a kid a book, teach them to imagine in there heads what they read there, don't wait until the movie comes out to have it all handed to you. without imagination there would not be technolgy for it takes dream to trigger discovery. Maybe thats why technology advanced quicker before 1980 then after. Cars, planes, space travel, computers, cell phones all were developed before then and in short period of time. Today we have faster computers and the number one use... to sit on our butts and to play games alone in a room as the world passes by outside...
    • member57, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Well said! I often turn everything off and listen to silence. I have tinnitus, so when I get silence, it's golden. Anyways, seems that most everybody needs to be constantly exposed to noise of some kind, ipod, radio, etc. stuffed in their ears or flooding the area. Most of the time I don't even turn the radio on in the car driving to work.
      My 7 year old son just got a NES, yes you heard me, a NES, old school NES. We noticed a problem almost immediately. He stopped going outside, stopped visiting kids in the neighborhood, and stopped reading. He just sat there for hours playing that thing. So now we limit his exposure, and he's doing much better. He has a cousin a little older that sits on his fat ass and plays his Nintendo DS constantly, oblivious to everything and everyone around him. We encourage reading to all our 3 children, although, am I doing a disservice to them by limiting the impact of technology?
  • codyfrisch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I agree with everything he said, except that jab at homeschooling. Again another person who doesn't get it. Homeschoolers are far more socialized than people think. Considering most homeschool parents tend to be very traditional, one can expect them to actually be raising kids the way Wil is ranting they should be raised. They aren't the kinds of parents to pawn kids off on video games.

    If he has a beef with what they are being taught, then he hasn't ever studied that very deeply before either. I went to a private Christian school, and our math textbooks were not even religious based. Our English books did contain some "christian" literature, but a lot of it was classics. We read classics, just like the public schools did. My home school friends (yes the private school kids were friends with home school kids because of sports and other activities) all read the same stuff too.

    The only place where there might be any concern (for him) was in the science curriculum. We covered all the the sciences, just as thoroughly as any public school did. We covered all the biological process, in depth. Physics, Chemistry, etc. all were covered. The only difference between our textbook at the public school books were that we attributed the "order" to God being the creator of it all. And we even discussed evolution vs. Creation, with arguments for and against both.

    So my point is, since homeschooling typically used the same books in my community as my school did. The homeschoolers I met were all very outgoing and polite. Many of them were involved in sports, there was a local home school sports club where the home school kids joined the team, practiced together, etc. They typically beat the private schools into the ground. They also had a bus and travelled to other towns in the state to compete against other private schools, and even some public schools in smaller towns. Though against the public schools it wasn't ever official because the government apparently believes a sports team competing against a group of home school kids who are partly Christians would be an endorsement of Christianity.

    My point is, they were all friends with each other, friends with kids at private school, friends with people at public schools. They weren't isolated freaks like Wil (and so many others want you to believe).

    Oh and having gone to that private christian school, and now at college, I'm not at any disadvantage. I was able to test out of a number of core classes, breeze through others. The quality of education was just that much better than what was received by so many of my current classmates. Though that partially does reflect on Montana as a whole, since I'm now going to school in Colorado, and I go to school with people who went through Montana public schools and they are generally far more well educated than the students from other states.

    Okay end rant, but while I agree with Wil about parents, please don't blame homeschoolers for it. They are probably the farthest from being what he is complaining about in the entire article. It smacks of his personal intolerance to throw that in at the end.
    • darkten, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Um...i actually thought he was *complementing* them for doing an overall better job....you got all of that out of him putting the word "creepy" before homeschool?

      Looks like you have a bit of baggage there, heheh.

      Personally, we actually homeschooled our oldest son for a year. We moved somewhere where the school he was to go to was just...offensive, to say the least. We planned to do it until possibly high school, but a spot opened up at a decent school.
  • gaiserrc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"With our oldest heading off to college in a few months" Wil is 34... he was having babies when he was still wesley crusher.
  • Eccles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I partially agree with Wil, but in some ways I think this is more a symptom than the root problem.

    I love my kids to death, and play with them a lot, but yeah, at times I want them kept busy elsewhere. It's not the technology, though, that I think is the problem; the problem is that they don't have much of a social life to distract them from it. I didn't have many kids in my neighborhood growing up, but I did have one friend that I played with almost constantly. My son occasionally has a friend over, but it almost always requires organizing, it's very rarely spur of the moment. But with busy parents, homework, organized activities, etc., even if he's available, potential playmates aren't. So he wants to play with me. And given I'm working, helping him with that homework load, shuttling him to soccer practice, etc., I'm pretty limited in my free time already.

    Changes that would make it easier for him to spend more time playing with other kids would be good for all involved, I think.

    A nice side effect, at least, is that he's best friends with his old sister, while my wife and I have less than stellar relationships with our siblings.
    • darkten, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ugh.

      When you have kids, 90% of "your free time" belongs to them.

      What is the matter with people?!?!
  • danielsan79, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Wil Wheaton has a kid going to college? That's kind of depressing.
  • miggie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Since those are Wil has step-kids going to college he must have married an older woman. WAY TO GO WIL WIFE! Younger guys are hot!
  • bigfatslob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I was with the dude all the way up until his home schooled comment. WTF does he mean about home schooled kids getting mythology instead of science and history? Most home schooled kids are home schooled not because their parents enjoy having their kids home all day and shouldering the responsibility of teaching them while STILL paying their property taxes (and hence, for the schools their kids don't attend). They are home schooled because our education system was broken before No Child Left Behind and decimated with it. The are home schooled because it is the only way short of costly private school to make sure your kids are taught what they need to know to excel at life. That includes lots of science and history. It includes, in fact, lots of history that schools are reluctant to teach for fear of hurting someone's feelings. It includes lots of science that schools are reluctant to teach because it just may contradict someone's beliefs.

    I'll tell you what happens when the home schooled kids meet the distracted generation, they will just nod their heads in disgust and continue on learning and doing and improving mankind, just the way humans are supposed to.

    I am not a home schooler or home schooled, by the way. But if my salary doesn't go up or my stocks don't hit, I just may have to go that route.

    And also, what the hell, wasn't this child actor schooled on the set? Is that not the same as home schooling? Is he calling himself a creep? Cause I think he's kind of a nice guy.
    • darkten, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2OK, yeah, I'm gonna need some clarification about that "mythology" thing...it appears it is being interpreted as homeschoolers do this due to teaching something religion based.

      I can tell you from my personal experience (we did it for a year, see my reply above) and some other folks I know that have started to do it, the motivation was because the school choice was craptastic...

      Tho I suppose some people do it for religious reasons *shrug*

      Still around Wil? Wanna clarify that?
  • zonking, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Wil Wheaton is married and has kids? Holy crapoly!
  • chess007, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2 The tv/videogames are babysitters for way too many children. A simple questio to parents: Do you want your child to have your values? Or do you want your child to have the values of whatever game/tv show he plays/watches?
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