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As I’m sitting here watching reruns of 7th Heaven on the Hallmark Channel, I’m wondering what happened to family friendly shows such as this one, Little House on the Prairie, and Life Goes On.
I remember that Monday nights were a huge deal in my family growing up. It was the night we all sat down together to watch Little House. The stories were compelling, and the lessons to be learned were practical.
7th Heaven was much the same in the early years. (It got a little soap opera-esque in the later years) My husband and I watched from the beginning, before we had any children. We had a standing Monday night date. We didn’t have a lot of money for junk food, so I’d make a bowl of pudding every Monday, and we’d watch 7th Heaven while eating pudding.
And Life Goes On. You just had to love Corky. I loved the way that show taught the world about people with Down Syndrome. An everyday family living life. There was nothing outrageous about the family. They just dealt with real life situations every week.
Are there any shows out there these days that a family with young children can watch together? I’m certainly not going to let my children watch Desperate Housewives. We like American Idol, but even then I have to preview the guest artists to make sure they’re not singing anything raunchy. I learned that the hard way when they had a couple of singers (I don’t even know who they are) singing “Hips Don’t Lie”. Yeah, the song is about exactly what it sounds like.
Call me sentimental. Call me uptight about my standards. I just miss the old days of good television.
Photo by aussiegall.
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Deb - Mom of 3 Girls says:
I wish I knew… It’s getting harder and harder to find things that are appropriate for the kids or even that I want to watch!
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:44 am
Jordan (MamaBlogga) says:
It seems like today “family-friendly” shows are the ones that end up with a moral at the end, despite the debauchery that may have gone on in the middle.
And even then, the moral’s usually relativist anyway.
BTW: There’s a new plugin to search Flickr for photos for posts and it inserts the credit link for you: http://www.photodropper.com/add-photos-blog/
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:04 am
Susan says:
Seems sitcoms have lost a lot of the innocence earlier shows used to have.
I watched “The Sound of Music” last week and couldn’t help think how this movie would probably be controversial these days because it involved a respectful view of God.
I used to turn on Sound of Music during sleepovers as a girl, no matter what the religious background of my friends. No one complained; no one was offended. I wonder if it would have been the same today.
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Kristi says:
7th Heaven weas interesting because it started out really family friendly, and then got terribly soapy, but then the last couple of seasons it seems they got back to their roots and it got better again.
The influx of “reality” shows I believe has ruined the television.
February 23rd, 2008 at 4:43 am
Julie says:
I’m with you, I long for the Little House days. The only show we watch as a family with any regularity is Hannah Montana. She dresses fairly modestly, when she makes a bad choice she faces consequences and from all I’ve read, the Cyrus family seems to be faith filled.
February 23rd, 2008 at 8:12 am
Lee says:
Yes, those days were so much better on the T.V..Little House, and way back when Gilligan’s Island was on. I watched a lot of shows when I was a child, and almost all of them were family-friendly. Nowadays, though it’s hard, you can find some good shows for the children,forinstance, “VeggieTales” and “Blue’s Clues”. But, you’re right, as a whole, for the whole family to watch, there’s just a few: we all like the Disney shows, “Suite Life” and “Hannah Montana”, “Drake and Josh”…but there’s still a limit to the adult shows we can watch…We like “Monk” and “Deal or No Deal”, but really, none approach “Little House” or those similar old shows which mean so much to us. Thankfully, there’s usually good movies on Hallmark and ABCFamily. And I guess we’ll just have to keep on watching the reruns of the best old shows,(even though they don’t show them near enough).
February 23rd, 2008 at 9:19 am
melody is slurping life says:
Call me sentimental and missing such TV shows, too. This is why we watch very little television.
BTW, how are you? I haven’t been blog reading much recently…miss ya. I’m trying to find more reading time.
February 23rd, 2008 at 4:17 pm
LJ says:
I miss all those good family shows too. Remember Full House? That was a great family friendly show that could appeal to everyone. They just don’t have shows like that anymore. Even Hannah Montana irritates me, it is just so fake. Reality TV has ruined Television.
so sad.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
fiveberries says:
Amen!
It’s not even just the shows that aren’t appropriate - it’s the commercials! My poor sons want to sit down and watch a football game and I feel like they really shouldn’t, because the commercials are terrible!
February 25th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Jennifer Partin says:
The advantage of living in Japan, I suppose. I hear stateside television and commercials have gotten really bad.
Good thing for reruns, I suppose. Or time to start a new tradition like Family Game Night instead!
February 26th, 2008 at 6:21 am
Cindy Swanson says:
I completely agree with you, Lynnae. My husband and I rarely get a chance to enjoy some TV viewing together, and we were trying to do just that on Monday evening. Even with umpteen million channels, there was almost nothing worth watching. “Two and a Half Men” is outrageous…it should NOT be on during prime time! We ended up watching part of a Hallmark Channel movie before I had to go to bed. Like you, I wish there were more decent shows to watch!
February 26th, 2008 at 6:31 am
Julie Stiles Mills says:
So far, we’ve bought 3 seasons of the Brady Bunch. We also watch Hannah Montana and Suite Life of Zack and Cody. My son loves Mythbusters. I’m also hoping that Oprah’s new show The Big Give will be all it’s hyped to be.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Candace (Mama Mia) says:
I totally agree with you. Some of the stuff they’re allowing to come on at 8pm is crazy! We don’t even have cable, but we can watch Sex in the City reruns at 10pm on the WB!! That just blows my mind. I wish that tv producers would realize that there is a market for wholesome tv.
March 9th, 2008 at 6:53 pm