Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Locking Doors in the CH

[R.N. Johnson (cohoranda]

I tend to side with the unlockers on this one.  Locking the TV room makes the 
Common house that much less welcoming.  The long term problem is not did X 
watch TV for an hour when his mom didn't know, but does X understand the 
reasons why his mom objects to TV.  I have 2 kids, and there is no TV watching 
in my home.  I spent much of my growing up years in Africa, where we did not 
have TV.  When we moved back, I spent several months glued to the tube, and 
then got  bored and moved on. After some soul searching, we decided not to 
restrict our kids' TV watching at other people's houses.  My 8 year is excited 
to go watch cartoons at Grandpa's, or watch movies at a friend' house, but he 
has also noticed that his friends who spend a lot of time in front of the TV 
and video games have nothing else to talk about.  Time will tell, but I would 
be surprised if he goes through an extend period of couch potatoness, because 
he is already thinking about the pros
 and cons of screen time.  For non lethal issues, I think that internal 
controls beat external controls: there just aren't enough eyes in the back of 
head or hours in the day for me to restrict my children's access to all the bad 
things in the world, and our relationship is not strengthened by endless 
arguing over things I don't really have control over once the kids are old 
enough to old enough to spend time in the world without parental supervision.  
I would not deny that parent's right to police her child's TV watching, but I 
don't think the community is obligated to take action to enforce that rule.