My son watched TV when he was small - after a full day of high stimulus activities in an educational daycare program, he needed downtime. He started playing with the Xbox 360 when he was five and saved his money from odd jobs for us and neighbors and bought himself a Wii when he was 9.
Maybe he won't be the next Steve Jobs because of it.
But what has been interesting is that recently, he is much less interested in TV and video games and far more interested in physical world gaming with his peers: Bey Blades, Pokemon, Yugioh, and in particular Warhammer. He's been buying figures, paints and brushes not the latest version of Madden with his money.
Keep in mind that it was easier for your mother to do what she did than it is to do something similar today - kids programming wasn't available on 13 channels 24x365 and it was considered inappropriate to market to children in the way that is now standard [see Juliet Schor's Born to Buy: http://www.amazon.com/Born-Buy-Commercialized-Consumer-Cultu...]
Maybe he won't be the next Steve Jobs because of it.
But what has been interesting is that recently, he is much less interested in TV and video games and far more interested in physical world gaming with his peers: Bey Blades, Pokemon, Yugioh, and in particular Warhammer. He's been buying figures, paints and brushes not the latest version of Madden with his money.
Keep in mind that it was easier for your mother to do what she did than it is to do something similar today - kids programming wasn't available on 13 channels 24x365 and it was considered inappropriate to market to children in the way that is now standard [see Juliet Schor's Born to Buy: http://www.amazon.com/Born-Buy-Commercialized-Consumer-Cultu...]