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<title> The result of speed-limiting </title>
I have not the intention to discuss different rates and levels of violence, neither whether the 
V-chip is a good thing or not. I think these issues only touch the surface of a larger problem; the high speed of our lives and how relations suffer from this. The situation in itself, that children are watching TV all alone, is a far more interesting and complicated problem than whether the V-chip is a good and efficient way to protect children from violence when their parents are away. What I believe is the problem is that people work too much. Parents with small children are today expected to succeed both with work and family-life. And that is not always a great combination.
Very often it seems as though the family becomes the second priority. 
When children are left at day-care early in the morning and then picked up in the late afternoon or when primary schoolchildren spend their day in school and then most of the evening alone, at home. Some parents might think that the V-chip would come in useful in such a situation, and maybe it would. I believe that the best solution would be if parents could spend time with their children, and most parents probably wish they could. The working situation in Sweden today is very different though. In our society a good day-care system is a sign of welfare. It might be questioned though, if it is welfare to leave your children at day-care all day long to be able to work as much as possible. What about sparetime and being able to relax? Isn't that a true sign of welfare? Maybe we have to revalue our attitude towards money and relations.
	It is obvious that people have to work less to achieve more sparetime. This naturally leads into another discussion, that one about a shorter workday. The 6-hours workday has been lively debated in Sweden but very often the discussion ends up in a "dead end". What I mean is that it's often concluded that the idea of a shorter workday is ridiculous since it would lead to lower wages and that people will never favour to earn less money. However, I imagine that it might work if some kind of reform of taxes and resources took place. It seems reasonable that a shorter workday will lead to more employment-opportunities, thus more people earn their own living instead of depending on social benefits. The latter are great expenses for the state, if they coul be reduced (due to lower uneployment) maybe that money could be used in some way to make it profitable for companies to employ more people. How to make a 6 hours workday come true, I leave for professionals to discuss. The only thing I can do is to speak for a slower, more human pace in life.
	In addition, I believe that less work and more attention payed to children would naturally solve problems like TV-violence and its effects. Today it is often very much up to day-care and school how a child is raised. It seems as though a shift of responsibility has been taken place, a shift from parent to government, a shift from home to day-care/school. One can ask if the intention of public schools and day-care is to raise children. I don't believe that's the real purpose although it might seem so today. I think children has to be raised outside school, by their parents, and that ought to be the natural way. If parents could spend more time with their children, both parties would probably feel better. Children would get better ideas of what is realistic and would not have to spend much time on their own e.g watching TV, but when they do, they can tackle the subjects on TV in a better way. Parents would also have more time for themselves and the relation to their children. That would be the utmost luxury of the welfare state that we so often struggle for.
With my reflections I can conclude the following; the real problem of TV-violence and its effect on children, is not the violence in itself but the abscence of parents. If parents would have more time for their children the situation would look different. A solution to that could be to reduce the workday to, say, 6 hours. The result would then be a shift of responsibility from state, school and day-care, to parents. If children spend more time with their parents and if parents take the responsibility to raise their own children, they could do other things than to watch TV, thus not being so dependent on it. In addition children would get a clearer idea of what is realistic and some kind of "backbone idea" of how to behave.
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