Re: Television (was Teen room advice request)
From: Kay Argyle (argylemines.utah.edu)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2001 11:10:04 -0600 (MDT)
> > ... tv and vcr in the sitting room .... A couple of parents have
> > expressed opposition to any ... tv in the kids room.  > > Kay
> I can't really imagine anyone wanting a TV in the younger kids' room.
> Does your TV get regular programming that anyone could watch at any time?
> Liz

The tv gets the local commercial and public stations; no cable. Wires were
put in for surround-sound during construction, but the sheetrockers made
them come out in strange places.  Unfortunately, there is no way to shut off
the sitting room acoustically from the dining room, to accommodate different
activities in each room -- a major headache, for more than just tv.

When a friend first suggested (a) we pool resources & buy a house together,
and (b) we look at cohousing, she then worked nights two weeks out of the
month. The idea was that, needing to stay on a night schedule, on her "days"
off she would go to the common house to read or watch tv, leaving me a quiet
house to sleep in.  We weren't members yet during common house programming;
if tv was ever an issue, it was settled in favor of having one by the time
we joined.

(I didn't own a tv -- not opposed, just never felt  the urge to replace it
when it broke years ago.)

Except for occasional video nights (sometimes kid, sometimes grown-up), the
tv isn't on much.  Our common house doesn't get much "hanging out" activity.
(The patio outside gets some.)  People come for business like mail or
laundry, or activities like meals or meetings, but never just looking for
company -- a self-perpetuating situation (there's no one there, so you don't
go there, so there's no one there).

Kids are expected to have nominal adult supervision while in the common
house, which keeps it from becoming a kid hang-out.

Sometimes during the winter the prospect of turning on the fireplace and
basking entices my room-mate and me into going over to watch something which
we could just as well have watched at home.

It's actually a good place to be alone, which is rather sad when you think
about it.

We don't have a teen room, partly for lack of space, partly for lack of teen
enthusiasm.  Attempts to provide amenities for teens haven't been notably
successful.  The parents ask, what would attract you to the common house?
The honest truth might be, Nothing will, I hate this place, this isn't home,
I want to move back where we were! but in a polite attempt to comply with
the grown-ups, the teens say, ping pong, karaoke, air hockey, fill in the
blank.  The parents provide a fill-in-the-blank, taking over space that was
programmed for some other use.  The teens use the fill-in-the-blank for a
week or two.  The fill-in-the-blank collects dust while interfering with
other uses of the space it occupies.  Then we start again.

As our pig-in-the-python cluster of grade-schoolers get older (I think half
our juvenile population is in the same grade), the kids room may become a
teens room.  Their attitude is likely to be different, since to them the
community is home.

Kay Argyle
Wasatch Commons
Salt Lake City
argyle [at] mines.utah.edu


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