3.21 /// Tales from the Pre-Digital DVR TV Era...

Remember the frustration of missing the start of your favorite TV shows because your parents just had to watch the news? We've all been there! Or have we? This episode takes a trip down nostalgia lane, reminiscing on the pre-DVR era, where shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Quantum Leap were missed due to parental TV schedules. We uncover the agony of growing up without Netflix or Hulu, and the annoying habits our folks had around the television. 

As if that's not enough, we're also shedding light on the mysteries of parent-style household rules. Ever wonder why you couldn't eat in your room? Or why your chores seemed inconsistent? Oh, and let's not forget about the irrational energy-saving tactics they employed. We're diving into all these frustrating and sometimes funny memories from our childhood, and ponder the scary thought - are we turning into our parents? Tune in for a relatable discussion on the idiosyncrasies of our folks and an amusing journey through memories that shaped us.

Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Chapters

• 0:00 Annoying TV Habits of Parents
• 13:05 Parenting Styles and Household Rules

Transcript

Stephen: 0:00

Hello and welcome to StephenSpeak the podcast. This is getting close to the end of season 3 now, so today's episode I'm going to be talking about some stuff from my childhood and some annoying stuff that parents do, especially my parents when I was a kid, and stuff that I found a little bit annoying mainly to do with watching TV, to be honest. So stick around for that. Welcome to StephenSpeak the podcast. Unscrupty Prattle on everything and nothing. Ah, thank you very much for joining me. I'm literally taking a social media picture as I speak. I just thought myself looked pretty cool, so I've literally just taken a picture over my shoulder that's actually come out really well, older than me. It's not post that a bit probably when the actual episode goes out, yeah, but today's episode is going to be about just when you live at home and your parents just do annoying things, and it's because they can, because they're your parents and you live under their roof and they have rules and rules are meant to be followed, but they can flaunt them and just tell you what to do, and it's really frustrating when you're a kid. Yeah, I'm sorry, a bit distracted. I'm trying to hide in my room and I made a bit of space. So I need to do some heavy cable management and, let's face it, when you're seeing this picture it goes up on the social. But yeah, I'm quite happy with how my laptop is and I've got new arm and stuff and I've got me stream decked myself again and, yeah, it's looking kind of, if I dare say, semi-professional. So, yeah, I'm kind of pleased with the rest of the room. Well, well, the less said about the better really. I just want to comment, and I'm quite kind of pleased. It's a bit of a work in progress. Over the last few weeks it's probably like a week and a half really I've just been doing bits and bobs. I'm trying to tie my Lego along the same, along the same time, just trying to ever try to tie your Lego.

Stephen: 2:31

Yeah, anyway, how are you? How are you? First, firstly, let's get out of the way. How are you? How are you having a good day? Where ever you are, where ever you listen to this from, I hope you're feeling good and you're well. And thank you for tuning in. If this is your first episode, this is the level you expect from my show.

Stephen: 2:54

Yeah, so the first thing when I thought about this subject, the first thing, the very first thing that came to mind was I was having a kind of discussion with my wife and my best mate. We're doing that TV shows. Recently me and my wife were trying to get through Buffy the Vampire Slayer. They're trying to get through. It's not a show, it's a good show. Very, very, very nostalgic for us.

Stephen: 3:17

But that show and a few others that were on in the UK I am from the UK they were on at a very specific time on television In the UK years ago. We had like four channels and it expanded to five in my lifetime and then we had cable channels, sky channels and stuff like satellite channels but the terrestrial channels before we got like the free view digital channels. There was literally like five channels and in the UK the news is on. We never really had like the BBC 24-7 news or the Sky 24-7 news just on broadcast transmissions, just through an aerial, and a lot of the shows I liked that were on either on reruns or new shows like Buffy, the Empire Slayer, the Next Generation stuff like Quantum Leap. I think of other things that were on at the same time. There was loads of other shows Jerry Anderson's Space Precinct well, what a show that was. I wonder if that's aged. Well, to be honest, I feel like it won't have done.

Stephen: 4:24

Anyway, yeah, so shows like that. They were all on at a very specific time in the UK, namely six o'clock. So what the usual thing in our household would be is to have some food. We would have our tea or dinner, depending on where you're from in the UK, depending on what you call it. We would have a sitting meal and we would be allowed to watch the program that was on at six and then we'd do the auditions and stuff, sort of shins and tidy up. So while the program's on, we'd normally have a dessert or just sit with a cup of tea. Be British.

Stephen: 4:57

But my mother would always insist and the reason I'm pissed at this is because, re-watching the shows, I'm now learning how much things I've missed in these shows we would always miss. She'd always insist on watching the news headlines at six o'clock on BBC One, which started at six. So we would always, always, always, unless BBC Two was running a bit late we would always miss the initial start, like the recap or like the prologue of whatever program we were watching. So we'd miss, like on Quantum Leap, where we'd jump to. We'd miss on Star Trek, like the initial bit of the show that was like setting the rest of the show up Nice. So frustrating. When you're a kid these are the days before you know in America, like Tivo and stuff, if you're on pause TV.

Stephen: 5:50

In the UK it's mainly like Sky or FreeSat where you can pause live TV and rewind it or record it and you know, wouldn't have mattered if we could have done that back then. Like fair enough, we had a VCR. We could have like just recorded the other channel. But anyone that was around in that era of VCRs knew how hard it was to actually find a blank cassette and then if you didn't know it was free, then it was a rigmarole to try and rewind it. It's crazy to rewind a cassette. If you knew it was free, you got to rewind it and yeah, it was just a load of hassle. So that was a massive pet peeve for me, the more that you moaned about it to my mum.

Stephen: 6:26

Like my dad wasn't that bothered about the news. Sometimes he'd want to say if there was something very specific. But my mum was always very much like I need to see all the news headlines. And then sometimes she'd be like oh, actually I want to see the top story. So we'd sometimes turn over to the actual program. I'd see, sometimes like 10 minutes late and it would upset me to near tears sometimes.

Stephen: 6:49

Like we did have TVs in our room. We were quite lucky, like when we were very young, we shared a TV and then as we got older we had separate televisions. I had a black and white one, so, thank you. She was like you can upstairs and watch. She was like, but it's black and white television and yeah, it was a manual. I'm like I'm only 40, but it was like an old TV, but it was like a manual tune, black and white telly and I was like I wanna see it in color.

Stephen: 7:16

Like you know, just you have to watch the news headlines, like there's news on later on, like like in the UK there was regular news updates Like and she'd have seen like some news from earlier on, like a brief recap of the news, and then there was always news on later on. Sometimes it'd be like a recap just before nine and there was the news at 10. So yeah, and it was before. Obviously phones and really the internet was a thing Like cause in them days you had to turn the PC on, set the internet up, dial up If anyone that remembers dial up yeah, so it was a big ring roll to actually to settle that up and actually get online to actually see what the news was. So, yeah, so we're rewatching all these programs. I'm like seeing bits of the start and going, oh yeah, that makes sense. Now that's why I didn't really get what they were doing there, or, oh right, that kind of tells me what that bit meant, and it's weird how much I remember the actual episodes and actually remember what I don't remember. If that makes sense. So, yeah, it's.

Stephen: 8:19

That was a really big pet peeve for me, though, and I say my dad wasn't so bad with it, but my mom was very much insistent that she wanted to see the. She definitely wanted to see the news headlines, and that was a. That was very much a thing for her to to watch the news headlines, and the more you complained, the longer she would watch. For it's very hard as a kid to sit there in silence, because you get fidgety, you get annoyed, and you can't help but say, mom, can I turn it over now? Can I turn it over now? Can I turn it over now? And, yeah, night man and I don't know whether she knows how much, how much anxiety and stress that put me and my brother through, and I don't. Maybe she did and it was just a payback for us being little shit sometimes.

Stephen: 9:02

But yeah, it's amazing like how much control that your parents do have over you, tied in your room, for instance, for instance, like I was reasonably tidy as a kid, I liked things where they were. But it's kind of like now if you looked at this room there'll be things that are like immaculately tidy. There'll be an alphabetical order, genuinely, or in like chronological order. Like my bookshelf at the moment. I've moved all my aliens books and alien books, trying to have a bit of relocation, of trying to get my things in place to make space for Sarah because I've got some stuff everywhere around the house, some of my stuff where she needs to put her stuff. So trying to relocate stuff, putting some shelves up. Basically, I've put all my alien books in the order they were released and it pleases me. It doesn't please me that they're all released in different bloody versions and sizes and stuff. I'd much prefer if they were all like the same format. But you know they're in order, so that pleases me.

Stephen: 10:00

So yeah, and I was very much like that as a kid, so some of my stuff would be, would maybe from the outside seem very messy, but I knew where everything was. But I could also be really really untidy as well, and I never really got the fact that, like, on one hand, my parents were saying that is your room, do what you want in there, we do not care about your room. And then they'd be literally going your room's really messing, you tired here. It's really mixed signals and especially for me, the way my brain works, that really aggravates me. It probably aggravates anyone really. But how I am with, like how information gets disseminated to me, is really important, I found, and only in recent times, which aggravates me as well.

Stephen: 10:44

But I find that I don't pick and choose. I listen to the words. That being said, I sometimes don't see extra meaning in them. So I know what my parents were saying, or they were basically saying this is your room, do what you want, but you're in my house, you do what I say, so I expect a standard of your room to be kept. It's what they really meant. So that is your room, do what you want in there, but keep it tidy. They would never really explicitly say that to me, so they would really say that is your room, do what you want. So if I wanted it to be untidy, leave me alone. They weren't completely obsessive like me putting toys away and stuff, but like making my bed and stuff like that.

Stephen: 11:26

But I suppose a hindsight and adult, making your bed every morning is probably like a good thing to do. You know, set your day up right, you know, make your bed and then you can put loads of shit on your bed. It's the only reason I make my bed being healthy. Today, by the way, I'm drinking water. No, pepsi Max for me, not a sponsor. I'm saying not a sponsor now, just out of irony, pepsico have not yet approached me for sponsorship. Very, very disappointed by them, but I will still keep drinking Pepsi. Anyway, what was I saying? I can't remember. Oh yeah, keeping you in tidy. So yeah, that was a really thing.

Stephen: 12:14

That really used to bug me where I'm putting your clothes away. Like my mum would give me my clean clothes and I would go and put them on my maid bed and come back down and she'd be like, have you put your clothes away? And I'd be like, no, I'm gonna do it after, and she'd be like, do it now. And I'd be like I'm doing something right now, I will do it after. Do it now, I'm doing something, it can wait. It can't Go and put them away.

Stephen: 12:37

I've washed them and I kind of get this as well in some sense, that I put the effort into washing and ironing your clothes, which it never runs to the ironing anyway. Never really do it, never do it really. Actually, I'm gonna really lie. I never iron anything. Maybe if you know me, you can tell that I do iron shirts really. Shirts are really the only things that really need it. Trowsers sometimes, but I have stay-pressed trousers. I get them drikkly and then I have stay-pressed ones when I put them in, so it doesn't really matter, yeah.

Stephen: 13:05

But I used to really annoy me how she'd be like well, that's annoying me, that I know they just sign your bed and I'm like well, it's my room, don't go in there. It's annoying me that my mum bit of sounds a bit. I think my dad was like too. He was working a lot, to be fair, and I think maybe he was a bit more chilled out and he kind of was more of the thing of as long as he doesn't see it, it's not really his problem and if you want, he would just say if you want to live in a shithole, let them live in a shithole. But I'm in that change a bit. I'm gonna credit my mum and dad like really they let me do it all the way.

Stephen: 13:41

When I got a bit older and my brother went to uni, I swapped rooms and I decorated it and they let me kind of like remodel my room as long as I was paying for everything, which I did, and I put new flooring down and paying today and like a vertical blind-up and stuff and tried to make it look like a little apartment. To be honest, I was going for the apartment from Big. If I'm honest with you, the New York style flat apartment, what do they call it? Like loft apartments. I really really wanted to take the plaster off one of my walls but dad wouldn't let me and the brick-style wallpaper at the time was incredibly expensive.

Stephen: 14:18

But kind of, when I went into that phase of like having my own kind of space, they kind of respected it and even decided to let me. Well, I think, just accepting that I used to take food to the room, because that was a big no-no as well when we were younger. Don't go and eat your meals in your room. Like we sat around a table and even if we were having snacks, we wouldn't really have to take them upstairs, which was really annoying. When you watched your film, film snacks were allowed, actually Like sandwiches, anything. That was kind of a meal no go. But when I redecorated it was kind of okay because I'd bought a better tea to sleep on, so it was like a settee in my room to make more space because my room wasn't the biggest, yeah, so it was really giving me a bit of a slag berth.

Stephen: 15:06

And the other thing was chores as well For me. I've always said like if I have a kid, I'm going to be consistent and not going to do these things my parents did to me. I will not be unclear in my actions, but I probably will. If I'm blessed enough to have a child in the imminent future and my teeth aren't in the right place today, then there's probably some things I will replicate from my parents. But I hope I don't. But chores were another thing that weren't consistent with me and comparable to me and my brother.

Stephen: 15:44

I think we used to take it in turns to wash up. So after we'd watched our show, which we'd missed 10 minutes of, we used to wash and wipe. So one of us would wash, the other would wipe, or vice versa. And yeah, it was nice, you know, it was nice to have that balance, but it always wasn't balanced. So I kind of accepted it go, yeah, you're washing and wiping. But then, because my brother was older than me, sometimes he'd go out before the washing up was done, so it was his turn to wipe, so I would wash up and he would go out while I was washing up, so then I'd have to wipe up. That's not fair. I never really noticed but he never seemed to get told off and I'd be like, why am I doing two jobs now?

Stephen: 16:27

And that happened a lot, very hard, done by and there's no disrespect to my mum or my dad, but I think it's just sometimes when you're a parent, you just go whatever, just do it, and you have to kind of use that adult card because I said so. And when you're a kid, there's probably nothing worse than because I said so, because you don't want to hear that. You don't want to hear someone say oh, it's because I say so. This is my house. The last one is probably like with heating and you know, electric and leaving lights on and things like that. And again, when you buy your own house, you kind of like you do kind of get it.

Stephen: 17:05

You think, well, when I bought my own house, like you kind of panic about how much things are costing you, like I'm left that I'm turning my light on how many like pennies a minute is that? Is that like 20 p an hour? Is it like 20 p a minute? Is it 20 p a day? I don't know how long that. I don't know how much energy that light's using. I don't know. I can't really be asked to work it out. I could work it out but I can't bothered. I'll just turn off so I can see where my dad kind of got.

Stephen: 17:37

That kind of turned everything off as soon as you leave the room, like my dad was. That was where my dad was the enforcer. If we missed, like you leave the TV and I'll go and get a drink, and he'd get a. Why is the TV left on? I'm literally on to the kitchen to get a drink. But if he could literally walk down the garden and leave the TV on and go and start mowing the lawn or something and it was okay. And I'd be like, dad, you left the TV on, but we're not. Who's paying for that energy. And he'd be like, well, me, it's my house Shut up, so it never really works in reverse. When you're a kid does it? There's no come up because it is their house and they are paying for all the bills. He's just gonna have to lump it.

Stephen: 18:16

Yeah, I was just thinking about that kind of concept the other day and there's probably loads more examples that I'm not going to go into right now. Maybe if loads come to me I can come back to this subject and touch base on them. But it's just really dawned on me that the day when we were watching episode of Buffy that I missed so many things at the start of episodes and things that really set the whole episode up. You know, it's how films and TV work, isn't it? At the start of the episode they'll show you a hint of something that you might not fully understand at first. Then it'll you know the circle of clothes during the episode and you go, ah, that's why they showed us that relic at the beginning, or that book, or that person arriving in the town or something you know, and it doesn't make as much sense if you're not seeing the beginning. But yeah, so I just want to touch on that today. So I hope you enjoyed that. Let me know if you agree.

Stephen: 19:06

Was any of your parents the same? Did you have, especially if you live in the UK? Did you have this six o'clock weird. I want to see the headlines. And what's it like in other countries, like if you're in America? Was that the thing? Like I grew up, I was born in the mid eighties so we didn't really have cable and stuff, but you know America's had multiple channels for years. Was there an existence of 24, 7 channel years ago? That you know meant this wasn't a thing for you Really interested to know. So hit me up on social media at Steven speak PC and check out my website, steven speakcom. I still haven't done anything with that yet. Be a big update during Christmas when I'm off. Honest. Thank you very much for listening. Take care of yourselves. I'll speak to you soon. You've been listening to Steven speak podcast. Thanks for listening to my unscripted Prattle on everything and nothing. Steven speakcom for updates, information and my blog. You can follow more updates on social media and Steven speak PC. Thanks very much and I'll speak to you soon.