I think that many, many years before home computers became fixtures in households, families sitting down and having dinner together was already a doomed practice. The television was more of a gateway drug than was the internet. ~
Go back further with the advent of TV but cause and effect has never been established. One cannot say TV was the cause. Merely all that can be said is one thing happened around the same time as another suggesting a relationship.
This post was edited by O-uknow at November 14, 2017 12:10 AM MST
That is very true. It is amazing the power TV has and how it mirrors our generations. Look at My Three Sons and Leave it to Beaver. A generation where women still stayed home and only the men worked to support the family. This was portrayed in their shows. Then, The Mary Tyler and Bob Newhart Shows. Next there was The Brady Bunch and The Courtship of Eddie's Father. Star Trek emerged with a new train of thought. All of these shows exclaimed was going on at that time in commercial America. Now I watch The Science Channel, NG, Discovery, History, Travel, etc. The possibilities are endless. Your point is well taken O-uknow. I absolutely agree. :)
This post was edited by Merlin at November 14, 2017 3:17 AM MST
I think the internet follows suit with the t.v. I can't imagine with the phones and the internet people even converse with their mouths unless they are absolutely forced to. :( Especially families. :(
We always sat down to dinner as a family. I always set the table and my sister always cleared it. We shared what happened in our days and had some great times. Unless there was something really special on the t.v., we rarely sat down and watched it. In fact, the t.v. was really only on for Star Trek and The Johnny Carson Show. Both of which I don't remember being able to watch. I was too young for The Johnny Carson Show and probably Star Trek too. By the time I was old enough to watch either, who wanted to sit around and watch t.v. with their dad and mom?
I hope I am wrong on this.... Yes. I hate to say it, but, I do think it might be a family-time event that has been thrown aside.
This post was edited by Merlin at November 20, 2017 2:43 PM MST
What about High Chaparral and The Monkees and Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom? My Dad was on the road selling most of the time and my mother in and out so our maid and cook gave us meals! But I can remember liking it when we could all be together which was often only on special occasions or when we went to restaurants. I loved my father so any time he would spend with me I was grateful for but he didn't quite know how to relate to me as well as he could to my brothers because I was the only girl. My mother had to do most of the disciplining which became acute as I moved into adolescence and which of course more and more I resented because I saw her as steering me toward a future in which there was no way I could succeed or even be comfortable.
Most likely yes however if you go to places like the Amish these practices ares still enforced . There good ones as well most families lived longer and happier and knew one another. Sadly the rest of the world is long lost
No, I think families having dinner over the table together is a thing of the past with the advent of insanely high taxation. When I was a kid, all the withholding taxes totaled less than 8% of a paycheck. Now they run over 40%. The bible says 10% is too much, and no nation has survived long with a tax rate above 10%.
Not sure what the net would have to do with it. Seems to me that would be more a function of whether everyone is available and enjoys each other's company. Growing up in the 1960s, long before the net, we seldom dined together as a family except for special occasions or going out to eat. My father was on the road most of the time selling and my mother had a social calendar so mostly our maid fed my brothers and myself. Sometimes my mother sat down with us but mostly she was in and out. And when my father was home he often closed himself in his room where he was off limits unless he had something special for us or to show us. When we were older we all had TVs in our rooms so took out meals privately there or were served there. In my "hippie" days when groups of people lived together there was more of a community feeling and more often people ate together which I thought was wonderful. I always cooked for my boyfriends and we shared meals as I do with my husband currently in the evening when we are able to. I can understand people wanting to be together but having different schedules but seems to me if your loved one would rather hang on the internet than be with you then they must not enjoy your company very much.
A family tradition we had was to come together as a family for dinner. No exceptions. This was a practice we had until my kids left home and my husband died. I find it a tragedy that families don't sit together for a meal. It is mainly the responsibility of the parents to set such rules, and enforce them.
This post was edited by Autumnleaves at November 15, 2017 10:07 PM MST
Houses used to have porches. After dinner some families would sit on the porch and some families would stroll around the neighborhood, and that was how neighborhood ties were maintained.
Then came radio. Radios were kept inside, and families would often listen to a concert or a speech after dinner. The radio, all by itself, was the reason people stopped building porches on houses. And that eventually led to what we now call "cocooning".
Randy D 