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Family tries to party like it's 1986

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We need to have things in the right perspective. Each generation grows up in a world the previous generations have various issues with and more so each preceding generation.
There is nothing at all wrong with today's generation any more so than what was "wrong" with our generation...or whichever gen you personally fit into. They are absorbing the trends of today that will follow right along with the future of society and they will think the same things of their kids and how lazy and/or easy they have it.

That aside, 1986 has an alternative to almost everything we have in 2013 even if it is more primitive and slower. It's not like we have teleports or anti gravity, life was still pretty easy back then and playing NES games can still be fun even today.
It was a great era in many ways but kids today will one day think fondly of how great this era is. They will think back and remember how you used to go to BB to rent games on physical disc or how archaic it was to have web browsers, laptops..etc. Everyone will probably have implants where our brains are online 24/7 just by thinking about it, who knows but it only seems bad to those of us who grew up differently and want our kids to experience the same fond things.

That said, I think any parent is wrong to attempt to force kids into their parents past, it's past for a reason.
 
People blaming something else for their perceived issues. Don't want the kid playing with the phone? Don't let them. The answer isn't kill all phones. Want the kid to go outside? Take them outside. Might as well go full stupid and start burning books. My 5yr old plays outside, in the woods, at the park etc. He can also use a cell phone, knows how to call for help/911 if needed. He can use a computer. Best of both worlds. It just takes effort. This father decided that he didn't want to put forth the effort in having his children experience what he had as a child so he took away everything and only left them with a single option.

Hopefully the children grow up smarter than the parents.
 
I think the father in the story is over exaggerating his kids addictions which probably had more to do with him coming home and sitting down with a beer can as the kids may have lacked neighbor kids to play with or whatever the case. Most kids at 5yrs and 2 yrs old can't hold enough attention to one thing unless they feel bored or lack means to do much else or have friends living close by. but if they do it's a simple act of being a normal parent to direct them to do other things. Instead he gave them mullets...sounds more like the dad has nostalgic issues than his kids having any.

My step granddaughter at 3yrs is all over the place, from a half eaten snack to the TV, to wanting to go outside, then inside, then upstairs, then to toys, then to snacks, then to...and that's just a typical hour or so without anyone having to impose time limits. So at least with his 2yr old, I doubt heavily that kid had some abnormal addiction. I could see the 5yr old wanting to play a lot of games or computer time but ya gotta have stuff to do outside or have friends close by to play with too, dad is just a nutjob.
 
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nurturedhate said:
People blaming something else for their perceived issues. Don't want the kid playing with the phone? Don't let them. The answer isn't kill all phones. Want the kid to go outside? Take them outside. Might as well go full stupid and start burning books. My 5yr old plays outside, in the woods, at the park etc. He can also use a cell phone, knows how to call for help/911 if needed. He can use a computer. Best of both worlds. It just takes effort. This father decided that he didn't want to put forth the effort in having his children experience what he had as a child so he took away everything and only left them with a single option.

Hopefully the children grow up smarter than the parents.
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I don't think it's stupid to take on a project like this. In fact, I think it's pretty cool. There was another family who did something similar and decided to let their kids grow up on a boat. The story was on CNN or somewhere a couple years ago. They sailed all around the world for a few years, did homeschooling, and their kids got to experience different cultures & have more family bonding than most families these days seem to get. Props to them both for overcoming the social anxiety of breaking the mold :thumbsup:
 
I won the largest video game contest in history despite not owning an NES. I would play at friends houses for a little bit, then back off outside to get around. I was always outside having 'adventures'. I once got pulled over by a state trooper about 30 miles from home when I was 11, I had decided to bike it to the other side of the metroplex using the shoulder of a state highway. They thought I was trying to run away from home, but I was just exploring.
 
Arkaign said:
I won the largest video game contest in history despite not owning an NES. I would play at friends houses for a little bit, then back off outside to get around. I was always outside having 'adventures'. I once got pulled over by a state trooper about 30 miles from home when I was 11, I had decided to bike it to the other side of the metroplex using the shoulder of a state highway. They thought I was trying to run away from home, but I was just exploring.
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Similar thing happened to my friend, brother, and I when we were going camping (stopped when carrying tent and sleeping bags). When we weren't in the woods all day we also biked all over town, often going distances that would take all day, like when my brother and I competed in the Blockbuster Video World Videogame Championships II and our family didn't have a car. We would ride our bikes there even on the days we weren't playing just to see how the competition stacked up (PITIFUL!) and study the game for our next run (Donkey Kong Country Competition Edition). Each direction took several hours but there was no way to analyze and practice at home without that special cartridge. We easily won Store Champion and I still wonder how we compared nationally. I know we had a better 101% speedrun than any documented in the world at the time so we were playing at world-class levels (Nintendo Power didn't publish ours; probably due to it being a bad photo).
 
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CZroe said:
Similar thing happened to my friend, brother, and I when we were going camping (stopped when carrying tent and sleeping bags). I also biked all over town, often going distances that would take all day, like when my brother and I competed in the Blockbuster Video World Videogame Championships II and our family didn't have a car. We would ride our bikes there even on the days we weren't playing just to see how the competition stacked up (PITIFUL! We easily won) and study the game for our next run (Donkey Kong Country Competition Edition).
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That's awesome. Someday I'd like to find a copy of that competition cart 🙂
 
I call shens on his age... there's no way a gay man born in 1986 has a 5 year-old son. the fact that he looks like he's in his 40's doesn't help.

seems a bit silly, though... I was born in 1981 and my childhood was far from "disconnected." grew up in an urban area, so the only times I recall playing outside were either when I was staying at my grandparents in rural New Hampshire for the summer or when my friends and I were loitering and up to no good (there was a 3-block strip on the main drag of my town that was like the designated hangout zone for the kids in my neighborhood... mostly it revolved around scoring cigarettes, fighting, and flirting)

got my first video game system when I was in 2nd grade, though, and after that, most of my activities revolved around sitting in dark air-conditioned rooms playing video games with my friends (NES+SNES, then LAN and dial-up games of Warcraft 2)
 
Arkaign said:
That's awesome. Someday I'd like to find a copy of that competition cart 🙂
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Yeah. I had a Penny-Arcade forumer promise to tell me when he was ready to sell his but he never did. My heart sank a year later when I saw him talking about having sold it for $300. I totally would have bought it too! 🙁

Anyway, while we can't play Tetris nearly as well as you, Ichinisan may just be the best in the world at Tetris Attack/Panel de Pon. 😉 We use a very similar D-pad tapping technique to yours and, well, he's a lot better than me on top of that.
 
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lxskllr said:
BORN in 86?! Kids... :^D

Unless they were Amish, they didn't lead a disconnected life. 1986 was almost yesterday, and the only thing really different was the lack of pervasive internet. Everything else had technological equivalents, even if they were a bit more primitive.
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Yeah... I was born the same year and I grew up with video games. We didn't even get a PC until part way through the win 95 days, and I still consider that as "growing up with a computer".
 
loki8481 said:
I call shens on his age... there's no way a gay man born in 1986 has a 5 year-old son. the fact that he looks like he's in his 40's doesn't help.

seems a bit silly, though... I was born in 1981 and my childhood was far from "disconnected." grew up in an urban area, so the only times I recall playing outside were either when I was staying at my grandparents in rural New Hampshire for the summer or when my friends and I were loitering and up to no good (there was a 3-block strip on the main drag of my town that was like the designated hangout zone for the kids in my neighborhood... mostly it revolved around scoring cigarettes, fighting, and flirting)

got my first video game system when I was in 2nd grade, though, and after that, most of my activities revolved around sitting in dark air-conditioned rooms playing video games with my friends (NES+SNES, then LAN and dial-up games of Warcraft 2)
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with mullets for the three boys, an 80s-inspired hairstyle for Morgan,
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Sounds like Morgan is the mom.
 
Growing up in the 80s my household had a 20in TV in the living room and I had a 13in one in my room. In my current home, the smallest TV we have is a 22in LED mounted on the wall in the kitchen and the biggest is a 46in in the main room. Heck, my computer monitor is a 24in LED HDTV. Hard to believe how much has changed in such a short time.
 
Golgatha said:
Growing up in the 80s my household had a 20in TV in the living room and I had a 13in one in my room. In my current home, the smallest TV we have is a 22in LED mounted on the wall in the kitchen and the biggest is a 46in in the main room. Heck, my computer monitor is a 24in LED HDTV. Hard to believe how much has changed in such a short time.
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in fairness, my 60" tv now probably weighs less than the 13" back then 😛

definitely funny to think of how quickly flat panel TV's took off, though. I moved into my first apartment in 2003 and my roommate and I split the cost of a big-screen CRT.

when I was moving out 2 years later, I couldn't carry the thing myself and I couldn't even find someone on Craigslist willing to take it for free.
 
mmntech said:
There's still one in my parents basement in a box. We used to use it as a second phone.

Do rotary phones even still work anymore? Wonder what would happen if I plugged it into my VOIP box.
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Rotary is just pulse dialing, so I imagine it depends on whether whatever system you're on supports pulse.
 
BUTCH1 said:
The old VCR's all had RF output, selectable to channel 3 or 4, since no TV's from the 60's-70's had an RCA video input RF was the only option, I worked in a local TV shop that sold the original Betamax, $1,400 and blank tapes were $25/ea..
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He could have had a TV with built in rabbit ears and no coax input.
 
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