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We're around the same age and my parents had pretty heavy restrictions on tv and videogames, I also got ticked off at the time, but I was certainly happy for it

We're around the same age and my parents had pretty heavy restrictions on tv and videogames, I also got ticked off at the time, but I was certainly happy for it even by the end of my teen years. I imagine if your goal is to make your kid happy while they're still a kid, there's a good chance you'll screw up your kid. What makes a kid happy half the time is stuff they'll regret in short order. And yeah, more rules went out the window as each of my successive siblings were born, too. I also seem to remember kids who had NO tv whatsoever (or just PBS, which was arguably worse than nothing), and I don't seem to remember them being too bothered by it. As much as we teased them for not getting the simpsons etc jokes. In fact they seemed to develop, at a much earlier age, some independence from the crowd.

bigger_cheese 4y ago
Yeah I have no doubt the way I was raised had an influence on my life as a result of I suppose boredom and the huge amount of free time due to TV restrictions I became heavily invested in electronics and technology, as a 13/14 year old I would buy computer and electronics magazines and read them cover to cover, I'd spend hours pulling apart and reassembling electronics. I would go to swap meets buy old broken second hand computers and upgrade/repair them and then resell them. My room used to be filled with old motherboards, keyboards etc stacked up to near the ceiling. I think it drove my parents nuts I had so much junk parts hoarded all over my room. All of this led me to studying Engineering.