Argumentative essay structure and techniques

¶ … television has brought irreversible damage to the American family in t least two ways, by corroding marks, and by making the 'good enough' family less likely to be 'good'.

There are, she says, three types of families: the 'spectacular' -- that which eats together with children, reads aloud to them, plays with them, is simply the uncommonly ideal family that you read about in books. To the other extreme is the failing family where the father may be an alcoholic, the mother may be depressed, the children are on the streets, and the family can barely function, if at all, as a unit. On the contrary, they function as a badly meshed unit. In the middle, is the 'good-enough' family which most of us are just trying to do our best and rear ourselves and our children in the best way whilst coping with the survival demands of the routine life?

Television, she asserts, demoralizes any attempt that the 'good-enough' family may make to improve itself, since television may supplant family togetherness and parental values and it is this medium that mays incrementally become the corrosive influence in the home. The more control, the parents have over the TV the more likely they are to retain their tenuous 'good-enough' existence. However, if they allow their grip over TV to fall, their children -- and quality of family life -- may easily slide in the other direction "For many families, how they control television may decisively influence whether they go in one direction or another."

Winn's argument has merit. She wrote her book in the 1990s. Circumstances have aggravated since then. There has been a proliferation of DVD players purchased for cars; parents are finding that occupying children with movies whilst travelling is more pleasurable than otherwise. Home construction has also been split into smaller and more private spaces in order to give each member of the household his or her own room to house the TV and/or computer rather than allowing these to become common experiences. The trend seems to be of allowing this technology to fracture family life into smaller and smaller pieces until it becomes irreversibly dysfunctional.

To add to the angst, a study has found that "two-thirds of U.S. children under the age of six, including children as young as six months, were spending an average of two hours a day in front of a TV, computer, or video screen." More so, about "one-third of these children (or about one of every five preschoolers) had a TV in their bedroom "(Dr.Heller.com).

There are also constant news stories about the dangers of children who sit too long in front of their TV or computer screen.

The trick word here is 'too long'. Excessive use of almost anything can result in negativity. The daycare too can produce both advantages (social skills) and disadvantages (aggression) -- the latter occurring if the children remain uncontrolled.

TV and DVD (both are related) have been found to have their benefits too. Children can learn vocabulary from them; certain programs can teach certain skills; one can use them for exercise; DVD is used in the military to improve hand-eye coordination (DrHELLER.COM).

The role of TV in family has been said to be causing loss of social and intellectual stimulation, and Winn (for instance) traces the declining family to its start in the 1950s, but much of the hype of the superb family of the 1950s was just that: hype fostered by the media but hardly existing in reality. Aside from that, the 1950s saw women working in the home, and saw parents able to give more time to their children. Are we able to revert to these days? Hardly. Would we wish to? Likely not. Today, both parents usually spend long hours outside the home working. They need TV to de-stress themselves. Child-care cannot be done by older siblings as was then. Some medium needs to replace this child-care, otherwise the child wanders into trouble. TV can be a helpful medium, especially when programmed to educational programs and when shown for carefully controlled amounts of time.

As Winn agrees, 'perfect parenting' rarely if at all exists. To chase it is to chase a miasma and to cause oneself stress in the process. Chasing it can result in tired, angry parents that are trying too hard to spend this 'quality' time with their children. 'Good enough' parents can be a satisfactory situation too.