Anyone Else Find This Simply Awful?

[daycarediva]

http://homes.yahoo.com/news/first-person-why-happily-spend-440-month-cable-200100460.html

$440 for cable? (and internet, and to a very lesser extent -$35- home phone)

with 440x12=5280 my family could get YMCA passes, annual zoo passes, children's museum passes, science museum passes, lake passes, water park passes and STILL have enough left over for a small vacation or fun money every time we weren't doing one of the above

The Dad says spends about 80 hours a WEEK on the internet. If he works 40 hours and sleeps 8ish a night, he spends Z E R O actual time with his children.

This so called family time is pretty much everyone in a different room, hooked up electronically, not interacting at all, and to make it worse, all of his kids are 3 or under.

[crazydaycarelady]

Yes, I find he whole thing sad. Especially that they have 3 kids under 3 and they are separated! Poor kids!

[MyAngels]

He tries to justify it by saying that they spend time "together" on pizza night watching a movie. You could just as easily rent a movie from Red Box for $1.00 and have $439 left over to spend on actual fun things to do with your children that don't involve being in separate rooms staring at the various screens. So delusional.

[spud912]

Hmmmm................and I wonder why he's single in the first place.

[crazydaycarelady]

it has been important for me to find healthy ways of spending time with my kids and tools that will help them through this trying time.

Delusional for sure! He thinks it is "healthy!"

[Cradle2crayons]

Wow. Just wow.

I will say though that I did like the paragraph where he mentions briefly about pizza night.

We have satellite and Internet and Netflix and a home phone..and a wii...a desktop... A laptop...an iPad...my daughter has a ds... And my son has a Mobigo... Their technology is earned, not given. And is maxed out at a certain time frame per week. It's also the first privilege taken with bad behavior.

HOWEVER. They do not have satellite in their rooms. They do have a tv in there. It's not connected to anything. I have two roku boxes that they get to earn on a limited basis. Saturday nights are their sibling night and they get to camp out in my sons room and hook up a roku and have popcorn. That is, IF they earn it.

The living room and my bedroom are the only ones with active satellite and that is also on a limited basis. My living room tv may go days without actually being turned on though.

We do not do pay per view. We do not rent movies. That's what Netflix is for.

Technology is awesome. If not abused. And if not used as a babysitter for your kids. And if not used to keep your kids from spending time with you so you can vegetate on technology.

He's the crazy one for paying all that money. I pay less than $200 a month for my satellite, Internet, home phone, Netflix, and mine and husbands cell phones all combined. I'd be embarrassed to admit to blowing money that stupidly.

[SilverSabre25]

Yes, it's abhorrent.

We have 2 smartphones, a nook, a laptop, a desktop, a Wii, one television. We have netflix. So we're not exactly living in the dark ages, and I lovethislovethis my technology let me tell you. But What that guy is doing is nuts. I think we pay...hm. About $280 for cable/fast internet/home phone/cell phones w/ data plan/netflix. That'll go up soon because they want to raise our cable rate.

But what that guy describes is just nuts.

[Lyss]

We pay just under $200 for 2 smartphones (unlimited talk/text & 2g data), digital cable (the basic digital package), and internet. I think that is WAY to much! We redbox (or occasionally download ) movies and I have a kindle so occasionally I'll by a book or show ($5/mo max probably). When the cable goes up we're canceling.

Delusional for sure! He thinks it is "healthy!"

I have about 80 tabs open in my Web browser so I can continuously alternate from working to socializing to entertaining myself.

80 tabs open constantly? I don't even have 80 websites I visit in a month! Plus the 'myself' comment really explains it all to me. This is really all about him having time to entertain himself while his children are babysat by tv.

I wonder what mom's reaction to this article would be

[Lavender]

We don't have cable TV; our only TV is in the basement. We manage just fine with internet and a 7.99/month Netflix subscription. THE HORROR!

[EntropyControlSpecialist]

We don't have cable TV; our only TV is in the basement. We manage just fine with internet and a 7.99/month Netflix subscription. THE HORROR!

I have that plus a spendy subscription to Hulu Plus for about $8.00 a month as well. I don't even like paying $16.00 for those but I do use them. I can't imagine spending more than that on cable or anything else. LOL! They are my "unwinding time" in the late evening.

[Hunni Bee]

We have no cable, no internet. We each have smartphones and that's it.

I don't think I spend 80 hours on the internet in a month. He's a douche.

But, I can't see the article. It just takes me to the Yahoo homepage.

[nannyde]

I feel sorry for the teachers who get these kids. Imagine how well a desk, a pencil, and work is going to go over with the kids. I wonder what happens to human babies when what they do is only what they see and what comes from their fingertips. What is that going to look like when the majority can only function within that and they are in big groups?

[Willow]

I had a toddler terrified of grass once.

I imagine his home life was extremely similar.

[daycarediva]

We have no cable, no internet. We each have smartphones and that's it.

I don't think I spend 80 hours on the internet in a month. He's a douche.

But, I can't see the article. It just takes me to the Yahoo homepage.

I copied and pasted the article below.


Welcome to my home: Pandora radio is echoing classic jazz music off the walls. My son, 2 1/2 years old, is watching "The Jungle Book" on the big screen in the living room while my daughter, 1 1/2, enjoys "Barbie in the Nutcracker" on the family room's television. In the nursery my youngest daughter -- she's an infant -- has finally fallen asleep to the soothing sounds of Pandora. Where am I?

I'm in our home office working on my laptop and recording the ballgame on my DVR so I can watch it later. My laptop is hooked up to yet another TV that is doubling as a second monitor. I have about 80 tabs open in my Web browser so I can continuously alternate from working to socializing to entertaining myself.

What cable means to my family

Life has been difficult for my family. With three children under the age of 3 and having recently separated from my wife, it has been important for me to find healthy ways of spending time with my kids and tools that will help them through this trying time. We have learned to make do -- and our cable package has helped tremendously. While too much TV may be frowned upon by some parents, it is something my family enjoys that we can consistently do together.

[Click to get quotes from multiple digital living service providers.]

One of our favorite things to do is sit on the floor huddle together and watch TV. In fact, we enjoy it so much, we have actually incorporated it into our weekly pizza night. Every Thursday, we make homemade pizza and order a movie on demand. I generally try to make sure that we watch something both entertaining and educational. Sometimes, I even learn something myself.

My son is a huge dinosaur fan and my daughters really just go along with whatever he chooses to watch (for now anyways) so one Thursday we decided to watch "Walking With Dinosaurs." In the opening scene, a young marsupial is swallowed up by a giant Tyrannosaurus rex. I was unaware (and still am) what the exact species of the marsupial was, so when my son started asking questions, I just told him it was a mouse. He stared at me with a puzzled look on his face before saying, "Big mouse dad!" I responded with, "Yes, sir -- that's a Jurassic mouse."

A couple of weeks later I had a friend over and my son was watching the same show again. When the marsupial appeared on screen, guess what my son said? You bet! My friend just looked at me and said, "Did he just call that thing a Jurassic mouse?" We all started laughing hysterically…

The cost of our cable

With great power comes a hefty price tag. How much does this lifestyle run me each month? My Xfinity bill from Comcast averages around $440. For my family, the price is well worth it. The package includes:

[Click to compare rates from multiple providers now.]

Cable television ($215 + approx. $50 in On Demand purchases) -- With more than 200 channels to choose from, including all of the premium channels like HBO and Showtime, we can always find something to watch. Add to that my sports package (a few extra bucks but well worth the price) and the dozens of movies we order on demand every month for the kids, we've got ourselves one powerful package.

Internet ($80 + about $25 in online On Demand buys) -- I couldn't live without the 100-megabits-per-second Internet. I spend at least 80 hours a week online. Nearly every piece of technology I own connects to the Internet in some way, either wirelessly or LAN. With the blazing-fast Internet, multiple devices can be running different things at the same time, with no lagging whatsoever! So my kids can be watching movies in the living room and family room while I'm working in the office and streaming my own favorite shows.

Home phone service ($35) -- The phone ranks last on the list because it's only used for personal calls. Since I despise long phone conversations I avoid personal calls as much as possible. And I use Google Voice for my business line. Note: I expect an increase with this proportion once my kids start wanting to talk on the telephone.

Equipment ($35) -- I lease cable and Internet equipment from Comcast, including a modem, router, DVR, and cable boxes.

I've been a Comcast customer since 2005, but I've only had an extreme cable package for about two years. When I first upgraded to my current package, I felt the financial impact and sacrifices had to be made. I started getting my hair cut every six weeks (instead of every three); I prepared and ate meals at home more often than eating out; and I switched to some generic rather than brand products. Since then, however, work has picked up and now that I use this technology on a daily basis to actually make money for my family because I work from home, it is easy to afford and justify within the budget. It's worth every penny to us.

Everyone may not prioritize a cable package in their budget the way my family does, but I remember life before our premium cable package...

[Find the right digital services package for your family. Click to get quotes now.]

Limitations with basic cable

When we had basic cable with Comcast, we could only watch the good channels on one TV, and the kids would pretty much dominate what we watched. Additional TVs could get a couple of shopping channels, news channels (all of which covered the same news stories), weather channels, and some Spanish-speaking channels.

This caused two problems: 1) The kids were usually watching some animated movie -- I couldn't tell you which movie because I have watched so many of them, they're all jumbled together -- and I had no escape. 2) I tried to hold up in my office with my laptop. I'd open a few tabs to catch up on all the latest news, funny YouTube videos, games, and favorite blogs; then I'd open a few more tabs for my social networking sites, Internet radio, and email; then I'd open some more tabs to start working and I'd wait and wait and wait. While waiting for everything to load, I would go join the kids to watch the animated movie and be lucky if all my pages had loaded by the time I returned to my laptop.

So while some might go on and on about basic cable -- and that package did only cost me $22.99 monthly, I'm happy to pay $440 a month for my premium package.
.. .

[daycarediva]

We have smartphones, my husband has a business cell and so do I, my 13yo dd bought her own cell and pays us monthly for her line. We pay $200/month and about half that is tax deductible.

We have Netflix 7.99

Internet $40

$247.99 for everything, and we COULD cut the unlimited texting/data on our phones.

We Netflix a movie if we want to have a movie night. We NEVER have the tv on, EVER.

We can afford it, we just chose to not allow our kids to be constantly plugged in. We also have xbox, wii, a desktop/family computer/laptops/kindle. My kids earn time, max of 30 minutes a day during the week and one hour on weekends.