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<title> Violence - not for children </title>
Nowadays, many parents are working, and they aren't at home with their children as much as they were before. The families need two full-time wages, and therefore they don't have the opportunity to be at home as much as they need to be able to take care of and look after their children. The children are the ones who are suffering most because of this. Perhaps their parents come home at 6 or 7 p.m. and at that time of the day it's almost bedtime for the children, and there won't be any time for being together as a family. The adults are probably tired after having worked all day and they just want a moment's rest, instead of playing with their children.

The real problem occurs when the television becomes some sort of a baby sitter, which can't control what the child is watching. In society today, many children prefer sitting indoors watching TV instead of being outdoors playing. When the child comes home from school, no parents are there. Many hours might pass until their parents arrive. During that time a child can have been watching TV the whole time. Even if the children has been told not to watch this or that program, they most likely do so anyway, because there aren't any adults at home who can watch them. So there is no control at all of what is being watched.

One solution to this problem is to broadcast the most violent films late at night, when at least the majority of children are in bed. I don't think it should be possible to watch these kinds of films during the day. They can for instance start at 8 p.m., when most adults are at home and hopefully most of the youngest children are asleep. It should be in the interest of the broadcasters to think about this. Broadcasters are also parents, even working parents, and they must certainly be aware of the problem. 

Another solution is the V chip, which Ginia Bellafante has written about in the article "Locking out violence" (Time Magazine, July 24, 1995). The chip is an antiviolence chip, which is installed in the television set, and its purpose is to lock out all programs having a certain level of violence. The parents decide the level of violence that is to be allowed for their children. But if you have more than one TV, the V chip would have to be installed in all your TV sets - probably at a high cost - otherwise there would be no point in having the V chip at all. Some people think that this is a kind of censorship, and that we would be too governed in our choice of programs, but I actually think it's a good idea for parents who aren't at home that much.

Some people may say that what is needed to solve this problem is parental control and responsibility, and not technology like the V chip. Of course, we all agree that parents at home spending time with their children would be the best, but we aren't living in that kind of society any longer. It's a fact that most parents have to work and be away from their children almost all day. I believe that the V chip is a form of parental control in our society. The parents can't take care of this problem in any other way, as it seems (except for a "real" baby sitter).

To sum this up, the main problem I brought up was how to protect our children from the violence on TV. Since parents today have to work and aren't able to control what their children are watching, something has to be done. It's not an easy task, but there are solutions to it. The V chip is one solution, broadcasting violent programs late at night another. If I could make a wish that I knew came true, I would of course let adults be home with their children much more than they are now. Let us at least hope that both or either of the solutions given will become reality.
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