I was at a social function recently and when I returned to my seat, I accidentally kicked one of the table legs hidden by a cloth. A brief tumult of wobbling objects ensued. Before I could apologize, someone at the table joked, "who raised you?!"
I chuckled, but I thought of our big old 100-pound TV.
My aim is not to disparage my parents, (nor my teachers, some of whom I loved) but if you're a Gen Xer, you know. My childhood Gen X friend fully credits wolves with raising her, so the TV? Not so bad.
Anyway, in terms of rearing me, I credit TV with a solid 70%, plus 10% to reading fiction and my encyclopedias, and also a grateful 15% to my grandmother. If you're a math whiz, that leaves only 5% for my parents. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Since they were rarely home, my parents' influence on me might best be described as unintentional, trivial, fleeting. This isn't bellyaching; it is (was) what it is (was).
NO the TV did not buy my jeans, my running-shoes, my winter coats; nor did it pay the electricity bill or bake fresh bread—a nod to my parents for all those essentials. But the TV did indeed provide. Provide what? My worldview.
If you're thinking, I wouldn't admit that the TV is mostly responsible for the lens through which I interpret the world, what I know to be true, what I value, and how I consciously (and unconsciously) act on that viewpoint, well touché, but it's just facts.
So regarding worldview, what did the TV actually impart? Lots. If you're still reading this, perhaps this somewhat chronological list of my childhood favourites provides some insight?
- Mr. Dressup & Sesame Street
- The Flip Wilson Show
- Sonny & Cher
- Star-Trek
- Maude
- MASH*
- The Muppet Show
- SCTV
- The Jeffersons
- The 6 Million Dollar Man
Picture kid me: part artsy, part social activist, part student of comedy, part stuntman, all woke nerd. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ TV was my babysitter, my family, my most welcome escape, but (like my beloved Lego) it helped me assemble myself. When I think about what the miniseries Roots did to my psychology. Whoa. And I'm sure TV is why I remain foolishly optimistic that everything can be solved in about 30 minutes (minus commercials). If only, eh? Sigh.
But one of the biggest influences? Mork & Mindy. Mork (Robin Williams) was my favourite (fellow) outsider. Remember Mork's observation on loneliness? It still chokes me up. He was all comedy and all pathos, and also everything. Mork was a bit of a psychic catalyst. I already felt like a social alien, but Mork (and the way all the kids at school endorsed him) helped affirm my curious nature and taught me it might actually be okay to be different (but probably not, so keep that nervous system cranked, sigh).
Dear friends, were you also fortunate enough to "know" him? Or some other character you saw yourself in? Did TV inform your worldview? Or something else? (It seems to me that unexamined worldview is at the core of life's more pervasive problems.)
Being a Boomer my childhood was a bit different. I was raised by my stay at home mom, dad, my maternal grandmother who lived down the street and and my paternal grandmother who we saw every Sunday. Oh, and there was the lady three doors down who watched over the neighborhood kids as we played in the empty lot across the street. If I misbehaved she would yell from her porch, Tommy I'm calling your mom if I did something wrong!
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you had lots of support (and couldn't get away with anything, ha).
DeleteRaised by a village.
ReplyDeleteReally.
We had a pretty free range of our neighborhood and small town and were watched over and watched out for by each other's parents and our coaches, 4-H leaders, Scout leaders, teachers, whatever.
Sure, home was our base and greatest influence, but I would not be the person I am without our small town community.
So glad for the village and the ideology that supports it.
DeleteGrowing up, everything and everyone in my world was grist to my mill. Some for good, some for bad. I can't really say that TV was disproportionately influential. But at least it had the virtue of being entertaining!
ReplyDeleteAll we can really do is learn from whatever life provides (or doesn't). Well done, Debra.
DeleteWhen you were part stunt man and did part time stunts, did you also make the bionic man noises? The best!
ReplyDeleteOh 100%. A good portion of my youth occurred in slow-motion too, ha.
DeleteBeing a boomer, and not a rich one, we didn't get out first tv until I was 10, and it was more often in ill-repair than in good working order. Consequently, my programs are different that yours and were frequently Westerns in the earliest days. There were a number of them. I don't know what they taught me.
ReplyDeleteOh I remember my Dad loving those westerns; I have no idea what I learned from their either but I did enjoy seeing my Dad relaxed and genuine.
DeleteI'm a little older than you I think, 64, and by the time Mork and Mindy came along, I was busy most evenings, but I do remember it, but not well. That monologue is lovely.
ReplyDeleteSome of my favorite shows were MASH, Maude, All In The Family, Laugh In, The Carol Burnett Show and Happy Days. I watched a lot of Sesame Street and The Electric Company while I babysat my niece and nephew. I forgot about The Love Boat and Fantasy Island!
Did TV influence me, I'm sure it did. My family was like the Bunkers but without the love and humour. What I wanted was to live with Maude.
It all seems so long ago now, because it was. I loved Alan Alda, his wit, his compassion, his skills. He played a complicated character on MASH and I think I identified most with him. I wasn't one thing but rather many things, things that shouldn't have gone together but did anyway.
Your comment is especially meaningful to me as I can see how you too felt like characters were family.
DeleteI'm a Boomer, so until I was a teenager, I didn't watch much TV. Then I watched all those old classic shows like MASH, Happy Days, I Dream of Jeannie, Star Trek, etc. I was also a book worm who was thrilled when the library Bookmobile pulled up in our neighborhood. My dad was a liberal history teacher so politics was not an off-limit topic in our home. We were church goers but not fanatics. I have mostly fond memories of my childhood, minus a few crazy family members.
ReplyDeleteOh I love it when people tell me they had a happy childhood.
DeleteI don't remember watching a great deal of TV, but we definitely had one, and when my brother saved up enough of his paper route money, he bought himself a portable and stand and put it in his bedroom. That was where I watched the first episode of Saturday Night Live!
ReplyDeleteI can also remember my mom and dad watching The Jonathan Winters show and hearing my dad laughing as I was upstairs in my bedroom. I wanted so desperately to go down there and see what was making him laugh so hard.
Oh I recall SNL too! I didn't understand it, but I appreciated the way those performers seemed to find humour in the chaos.
DeleteI am just enough older than you that my set of television shows was different than yours, and colored by the fact that the adults in the house got to choose what was aired.
ReplyDeleteThat limitation would certainly impact the influence.
DeleteI can't think of anyone on TV that I saw myself in. Is that unusual? Is there a character you identified with? -Kate
ReplyDeleteBased on the way you describe your positive relationship with your mom, your comments does not seem unusual at all.
DeleteBooks. I was raised almost entirely by books. One of the things my parents got right was letting me read anything I wanted to read. Anything. One of our upstairs neighbors when I was in 2nd grade gave me his old college lit textbooks. So I read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. And Flowers for Algernon. I wasn't even eight years old yet. I read copious amounts of our encyclopedia, too. See and See Also were my favorite things. My parents got a lot of things wrong. But they managed to do some things that weren't.
ReplyDeleteTV wasn't a huge part of my life, half the time it was broken and we didn't have cable when it *did* work.
Lucky. Me too, but not quite as much. I can still recall reading Flowers for Algernon that first time though. LOVED it.
DeleteI wasn't allowed in my house long enough to watch too much TV back then. I mostly raised myself and my little brother. lol When I did watch TV it was what my parents wanted to watch. I was always outside.
ReplyDeleteWhen outside is safe, there's nothing better.
DeleteI am a boomer myself, and I think one of my favorite shows growing up was the Carol Burnett show. I grew up in upstate NY about 90 miles from Ottawa. We didn't have cable tv, and had to rely on an antenna. We only got one American station, which was CBS. We also got CTV and CBC, as well as a French station from Québec. So a lot of the shows that were popular in the USA I never saw, unless they were on CBS or Canadian television.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing this, Michael. Carol Burnett was fantastic! (Still is.)
DeleteI knew Mork so well, I carried him with me to school every day. Wish I'd held onto that yellow plastic Mork & Mindy lunchbox!
ReplyDeleteHe was the best. I wish you still had that lunchbox too.
DeleteTV absolutely served as surrogate parent and philosophy class for our generation. Mork was pure magic for anyone who felt like an observer on their own home planet; Robin Williams captured that specific ache of wanting to connect while being hopelessly different better than almost anyone else in pop culture history.
ReplyDeleteWe definitely absorbed that stubborn sitcom optimism that problems can be unraveled with a heartfelt talk before the commercial break. Beautiful reflection, DB!
Thank you. "Specific ache" is absolutely perfect word choice. Well done, fellow philosopher.
DeleteI spent a lot of my time outside with other kids playing sports, riding my bike. I did watch some of those shows you mentioned but really didn't pay much attention. Even today, I don't own a tv. Amost 20 years ago we gave our little small tv away.
ReplyDeleteWell done, Bill. No doubt you are an action hero of a human (whereas I'm more of the human watching you get shit done and writing about it in The Daily Bugle). Insert fist bump here.
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