Beautiful and fascinating column. I'm wondering though, if putting so much in political boxes is where it belongs.
I'm at the moment "breaking the rules" in a contemplative retreat (by zoom) I'm on this weekend. Except for this (and so far, one response to fascinating comments by Mike Chivers on a previous column of yours) jan and I have had no TV, no phones, no computers since Thursday evening (at the moment, that's about 1 1/2 days ago).
Is there a specific "political orientation" to this? To put what we're doing in Christian language (and our retreat leader, though conversant with a variety of spiritual traditions, grew up Catholic, describes himself as having been "a God guy" throughout his childhood, and still goes with his wife and 8 year old daughter to mass regularly, and frequently incorporates Biblical stories and quotations and experiences at Mass with us in talks and during the retreat).
I was choir director of a Spanish Catholic church through the 80s, and my meditation teacher (a former professor of Indian philosophy at Columbia U) lived across the street from the church, on West 14th st in NYC. And now back to your column and comments about phones, TV, etc.
Every month, for the first 4 years I worked at the church, I used to go for "all night meditations" at my teacher's home. My wife and I would make a point of making the whole day, Sunday, a retreat day. no TV, almost no reading (except scripture) etc. I would direct music for the Spanish and English mass, then come home, and either we'd go for a quiet walk in the park or by the river or be home and be in a quiet, contemplative space, then go to our teacher's home for evening meditation, go back in the middle of the night for another meditation session, then again in the morning at 5 AM (and back to work Monday morning!)
Nothing political about it. Just living profoundly at odds with modern consumerist (Right, Left, Up, Down, Conservative, Liberal, etc) culture. With modern noise filled culture.
Well, ok, enough words, Going to nap, go with Jan for a long walk on this beautiful not-quite-spring day, have our next zoom session at 2, then back out to walk in the park later this afternoon, our final session tonight from.9 to 10:30, and if I stay with it, no more comments online till the retreat is over late tomorrow afternoon.
Silence. In Silence, we find Him, nearer to us than our jugular vein (as it is said in the Koran, in a verse so beloved by the Sufis). We find His presence, we find we "live and move and have our Being in Him.". We find that by dying we come truly to Life.
We used to live in Lyon, France. I used to cringe whenever I ran into loud, obnoxious American tourists, and almost always felt the need to apologize to our French friends and acquaintances on their behalf. I WAS one of them when we first moved to France. I am still thankful to a French friend who stopped me mid-sentence (we were in a cafe) and said: “look around you. Who is everyone in the cafe looking at? Why do Americans feel the need to talk so loudly?” Thierry, thank you friend, for helping me to see myself more clearly!
Silence IS golden, unless it is the sound of loneliness, exposing your mind to hear only your own thoughts, which may or may not rise to nobility. Or perhaps the peace is merely the momentary calm of the din of an environment filled with noise from machines and other people nearby that you'd rather not hear. I think for a lot of folks, American, or anyone in the developed world, really, filling the air with an almost constant stream of music or news or mindless noise from endless TV programs is a symptom, and not necessarily the cause of what ails many of us. Obviously, it's got to be a fair bit of both (seems to me, anyway).
I can relate to the bit about the never-ending TV on thing. My late mother and brother lived together (He took care of her the last five or six years till she passed, then he did, as well), and they NEVER turned off the TV. It was a sort of security blanket.
There is a place (somewhere in the US, actually!) that is a sensory-deprivation room, described as the quietest place on Earth. It's said that it's difficult to stay there for too long, as the sound of your blood and heartbeat start to give you the willies.
And, then there is the somewhat self-loathing hubristic promotion of silence as unmitigated virtue. After all, even in regard to Heaven, we read of a mere "half an hour" of silence.
I lived in Germany as a student in 2000, and then as a young adult from 2002-2006. Many of my friends, who were the same age, were still students since being a student lasts until 25 or so over there. When I was a student, I was pretty sensitive about the "loud American" stereotype, to the point where I never claimed not to be American, but I enjoyed it when people were shocked upon hearing that I was an American. Living over there again for four years, I got a lot less sensitive to it.
In Germany, at least, there were different groups of Americans running around. You had the tourists, and those tended to be the loud ones. You have the military folks - soldiers, family members, civilian workers - and they tend to be in the middle ground. They are there long enough to acclimate, and unless they are the soldiers at the bars, they're not usually loud or obnoxious, but the vast majority don't know enough German to do very basic things without someone (usually the German) speaking English. Then there are the people who are long-timers, and I think I got to that point, who are almost indistinguishable from the Germans at first glance, but are betrayed by little things, like smiling too much or wearing a coat of a color not even on the Germans' radar. (Yes, how I learned to embrace "being different" the year or two I had my plum-colored coat, a hand-me-down from an American friend.)
The thing is, the tourists come and go, and there's not a lot that can be done about them. They're usually not there long enough to learn the language, but they usually don't wander far out of the tourist areas. Germany needs these tourists badly, but they don't want to feel like they're "catering" to them. So it's a blast watching American tourists in central Munich try to communicate with the Polish and Russian girls behind the counter at McDonalds or Burger King who can barely get by in German, much less English. Want to know the first place I saw the electronic ordering boards? Central Munich! And before you all complain about Americans going to McDonalds abroad, German restaurants are expensive to begin with, and if you don't leave the tourist zone, they are borderline insane.
The thing is, in my travels and in my living abroad, I've noticed that the majority of Americans abroad (apart from some of the military) are liberal to crazy-liberal politically. Yes, a lot of them were students. I don't think necessarily that conservatives don't travel or that they aren't interested in other places, but probably culturally stay closer to home. I don't know. I just know that when visiting New Zealand, we set up a trip with a very good travel agent in Chicago who specialized in trips to Australia and New Zealand. She set us up with some very exclusive stuff, and one of the tour guides made it sound like he had done tours with people like Bill Gates and the Clintons and stuff. This was in the fall of 2008, and there was keen interest in the election. It was just a very strange moment, but the guy told us that in all his years of giving tours, he'd "never met a Republican". We weren't wanting to challenge him, so we kind of let it drop.
I don't know. The view of Americans abroad is nuanced, and the more you can speak to people in their own language, the more that becomes apparent. And, of course, there is history unique to Germany as well. On one hand, we export a lot of "culture", but it tends to be the Hollywood stuff. As far as "regular" America, we're pretty much a puzzle to Europeans because even those who come to visit the US again almost never get out of the "tourist zones".
One of my favorite quotes of all time, because it is so true:
“Reverence must be paid even to those sinners whose souls seem to be dead, because it is Christ, who is the life of the soul, who is dead in them; they are His tombs, and Christ in the tomb is potentially the risen Christ.” – Caryll Houselander
I think of Father Zosima, kneeling at the feet of Dmitri Karamazov.
My wife and I are puritans about it, basically. I’ve been preaching the dangers of screens to my patients from before I had kids, it’s just so obviously damaging (spiritually, developmentally, behaviorally, and any other lly you can think of). A few observations:
1. It’s not difficult. Literally every single civilization in history before like 20 years ago somehow raised young children without paw patrol on a tablet during dinner, you don’t need a phd or a will of steel to not poison your child’s soul with corporate garbage. Eating healthy - removing added sugars, processed junk, etc - actually is difficult, time consuming, and can be expensive. But just saying no to Disney+ is easy, quick, and free!
2. It’s so rewarding. Our kids spend hours playing, outside and in, with imaginary dragons, pirates, dinosaurs, Biblical heroes and villains, etc. their brains are sponges, if you provide rich material (Bible stories, classic kids books, etc) they will not be bored, they will flourish, and surprise you with the extent they can entertain themselves. Even if they have no idea who the characters on their pull-ups really are (do you know how hard it is to find toothpaste, diapers, undies, etc without corporate branding?)
3. It might be impossible to do without homeschooling. I know I said it’s easy, and it is, as long as you don’t send your kids to Caesar. But you’re 100% right that it’s so ubiquitous among “normies” that it’s a losing battle without, say, some Benedict option like community…
4. It’s a lost cause. I don’t get it. But I’ve personally seen parents lock their kids in the house for 2 years rather than expose them to a harmless cold… yet these same parents have no problem giving those same children daily access to mind-and-soul-deadening technology (to say nothing of hardcore pornography). It’s poison, and parents just don’t care. Every time we go out, we see kids on screens. Every day in my clinic, I see kids on screens. No matter how much I preach, it falls on deaf ears. I just feel so bad for these poor kids.
Ok, rant over, thank y’all for listening. More here:
Ah, expatriate life! Thirteen years away from America this year and I now support the restoration of the aristocracy. And I secretly throw away almost all of the candy my parents send my kids because it's all full of food dyes and corn syrup. It's been a journey, I tell you.
In all seriousness, one of my pivotal red pill experiences that disabused me of my left wing ways was seeing the migration crisis in 2015 up close. The scales fell from my eyes, etc etc. It made me much more critical towards my own unexamined values and assumptions, which were so, so heavily influenced by American campus culture. Which feels immeasurably foreign to me meanwhile.
Where does that come from? What do you think? It was as if we were guilty of sinning against the Ethic Of Consumption, or something. I honestly don’t understand it. I’d love to know what you think. Let’s talk about it in the comments boxes.
My thoughts?
The kinds of things you and your acquaintance talked about are definitely tied to elite class parenting, for example, the restrictions you placed upon television watching in your home.
It seems to me that the resentment might also stem from whatever time period in recent U.S. history where class-based and personal preferences came to be seen as a political stance, and/or a value judgment that those who don't fit our preferences are lacking in some fashion.
Key points I remember: the blue/red state divide, that political and cultural differences are intertwined.
That book, What's the Matter with Kansas? Hillary Clinton claiming that red staters were a "basket of deplorables," or Obama's assertion that red staters cling to their guns and Bibles.
I feel truly blessed that my family, and the one I married into share the important values. But, my MIL truly gets offended when I even raise a SMALL easy fix.
For example, we lived in 600 square feet in NYC, and she cried when I asked get nicely and thoughtfully to stop bringing so much stuff up for the baby, and she cried.
Now we have moved, and she just sneaks stuff into the house for our kids without asking. I just started throwing away without asking. But if I brought it up, she would cry.
Also, she buys organic milk for herself, and scoffs at me buying organic for the kids. I mean, who cares.....
The best form of meditation is in a city park, where you can hear the buses passing by, where there are background noises and aromas and people chatting idly and also birds singing, where there is wind caressing grass. Like Rittenhouse Square in Philly.
But it doesn't matter where you are, all you have to do is focus on ONE of the sensory phenomena, which may well be a cacaphonous sound. Focus on one aspect of the sound wave, or if not sound then focus on something visual, or even a physical sensation, like your breath. You may close your eyes, but you can't close your ears. I meditate with eyes open. However it's done, eventually everything else will become a non-distraction as the concentration takes hold.
Let's say you are in a busy waiting room with five TVs blaring nonsense. It doesn't matter. Wherever you may be, focus in on One Thing with determination to turn everything else peaceful. After a while, even brain patterns are altered by this practice.
My own brain patterns still resemble a homing toad's far more than any Zen master's, and in fact, I believe that prayer and meditation are functionally very similar, so, Sir Toad, you are probably far ahead of me on any quasi-stoic quest to achieve magnanimity amidst chaos, simply because of your consistent, prayerful habits of mind.
I grew up in Southern California where every space is designed to choke out the ability to focus. I live in northern California now. When i visit family in LA the noises are everywhere. It is my belief that they get upset about turning it off in order to have a conversation because it’s too intimate. They prefer to relate as a bubble in a champagne glass, to be a swirling, non-contiguous jumble of meaningless effervescence. They feel protected by the alienation that noise produces. That’s my 2 cents.
When our kids were younger we had to fight tooth and claw with their great-grandmother to stop loading them down constantly with crap. One Thanksgiving holiday that we spent with my wife's parents my grandmother in law had brought an entire carload of stuff with her, and tried to transfer it to our minivan. She had so stuffed our minivan with, well, stuff, that our kids had nowhere to put their feet, and my wife and I could barely get our own bags in. And she kept bringing out more, protesting "Well, I got it for them, it's a shame to leave it behind!" I finally yelled "No more! There isn't any more f***ing room in the f***ing car for this garbage! They don't need any more coloring books, dolls, or other junk! They can't even put their feet down! The older 2 can't even get out quickly for bathroom break! [we had a 9 hour drive ahead] I don't care what you [long string of expletives] do with it, but we can't take it, and didn't ask you to buy it!" Neither my parents nor my wife's parents (boomers) ever did that with us, as they too had fought tooth and claw with their parents' generation to stop overloading us when we were kids. I've often wondered if it was something of an after-effect of the Depression.
As for the TV noise, my father is one who always has it going, often far too loudly, but it's usually in another room, and so we can ignore it when we visit. We cut the cable back in 2008, when our children were all quite young, because we were appalled by the garbage on even then. Netflix streaming, however, soon replaced it, though we later cut that too, again appalled by the filth of it. Several years ago we moved our own TV to a basement den, and now it is infrequently used except for movies. The house is nice and quiet now, a pleasant place to read or talk (or yes, mindlessly watch Youtube vids for some, but they have to keep the volume down).
Beautiful and fascinating column. I'm wondering though, if putting so much in political boxes is where it belongs.
I'm at the moment "breaking the rules" in a contemplative retreat (by zoom) I'm on this weekend. Except for this (and so far, one response to fascinating comments by Mike Chivers on a previous column of yours) jan and I have had no TV, no phones, no computers since Thursday evening (at the moment, that's about 1 1/2 days ago).
Is there a specific "political orientation" to this? To put what we're doing in Christian language (and our retreat leader, though conversant with a variety of spiritual traditions, grew up Catholic, describes himself as having been "a God guy" throughout his childhood, and still goes with his wife and 8 year old daughter to mass regularly, and frequently incorporates Biblical stories and quotations and experiences at Mass with us in talks and during the retreat).
I was choir director of a Spanish Catholic church through the 80s, and my meditation teacher (a former professor of Indian philosophy at Columbia U) lived across the street from the church, on West 14th st in NYC. And now back to your column and comments about phones, TV, etc.
Every month, for the first 4 years I worked at the church, I used to go for "all night meditations" at my teacher's home. My wife and I would make a point of making the whole day, Sunday, a retreat day. no TV, almost no reading (except scripture) etc. I would direct music for the Spanish and English mass, then come home, and either we'd go for a quiet walk in the park or by the river or be home and be in a quiet, contemplative space, then go to our teacher's home for evening meditation, go back in the middle of the night for another meditation session, then again in the morning at 5 AM (and back to work Monday morning!)
Nothing political about it. Just living profoundly at odds with modern consumerist (Right, Left, Up, Down, Conservative, Liberal, etc) culture. With modern noise filled culture.
Well, ok, enough words, Going to nap, go with Jan for a long walk on this beautiful not-quite-spring day, have our next zoom session at 2, then back out to walk in the park later this afternoon, our final session tonight from.9 to 10:30, and if I stay with it, no more comments online till the retreat is over late tomorrow afternoon.
Silence. In Silence, we find Him, nearer to us than our jugular vein (as it is said in the Koran, in a verse so beloved by the Sufis). We find His presence, we find we "live and move and have our Being in Him.". We find that by dying we come truly to Life.
The mute button is a wonderful thing.
We used to live in Lyon, France. I used to cringe whenever I ran into loud, obnoxious American tourists, and almost always felt the need to apologize to our French friends and acquaintances on their behalf. I WAS one of them when we first moved to France. I am still thankful to a French friend who stopped me mid-sentence (we were in a cafe) and said: “look around you. Who is everyone in the cafe looking at? Why do Americans feel the need to talk so loudly?” Thierry, thank you friend, for helping me to see myself more clearly!
Silence IS golden, unless it is the sound of loneliness, exposing your mind to hear only your own thoughts, which may or may not rise to nobility. Or perhaps the peace is merely the momentary calm of the din of an environment filled with noise from machines and other people nearby that you'd rather not hear. I think for a lot of folks, American, or anyone in the developed world, really, filling the air with an almost constant stream of music or news or mindless noise from endless TV programs is a symptom, and not necessarily the cause of what ails many of us. Obviously, it's got to be a fair bit of both (seems to me, anyway).
I can relate to the bit about the never-ending TV on thing. My late mother and brother lived together (He took care of her the last five or six years till she passed, then he did, as well), and they NEVER turned off the TV. It was a sort of security blanket.
There is a place (somewhere in the US, actually!) that is a sensory-deprivation room, described as the quietest place on Earth. It's said that it's difficult to stay there for too long, as the sound of your blood and heartbeat start to give you the willies.
And, then there is the somewhat self-loathing hubristic promotion of silence as unmitigated virtue. After all, even in regard to Heaven, we read of a mere "half an hour" of silence.
I lived in Germany as a student in 2000, and then as a young adult from 2002-2006. Many of my friends, who were the same age, were still students since being a student lasts until 25 or so over there. When I was a student, I was pretty sensitive about the "loud American" stereotype, to the point where I never claimed not to be American, but I enjoyed it when people were shocked upon hearing that I was an American. Living over there again for four years, I got a lot less sensitive to it.
In Germany, at least, there were different groups of Americans running around. You had the tourists, and those tended to be the loud ones. You have the military folks - soldiers, family members, civilian workers - and they tend to be in the middle ground. They are there long enough to acclimate, and unless they are the soldiers at the bars, they're not usually loud or obnoxious, but the vast majority don't know enough German to do very basic things without someone (usually the German) speaking English. Then there are the people who are long-timers, and I think I got to that point, who are almost indistinguishable from the Germans at first glance, but are betrayed by little things, like smiling too much or wearing a coat of a color not even on the Germans' radar. (Yes, how I learned to embrace "being different" the year or two I had my plum-colored coat, a hand-me-down from an American friend.)
The thing is, the tourists come and go, and there's not a lot that can be done about them. They're usually not there long enough to learn the language, but they usually don't wander far out of the tourist areas. Germany needs these tourists badly, but they don't want to feel like they're "catering" to them. So it's a blast watching American tourists in central Munich try to communicate with the Polish and Russian girls behind the counter at McDonalds or Burger King who can barely get by in German, much less English. Want to know the first place I saw the electronic ordering boards? Central Munich! And before you all complain about Americans going to McDonalds abroad, German restaurants are expensive to begin with, and if you don't leave the tourist zone, they are borderline insane.
The thing is, in my travels and in my living abroad, I've noticed that the majority of Americans abroad (apart from some of the military) are liberal to crazy-liberal politically. Yes, a lot of them were students. I don't think necessarily that conservatives don't travel or that they aren't interested in other places, but probably culturally stay closer to home. I don't know. I just know that when visiting New Zealand, we set up a trip with a very good travel agent in Chicago who specialized in trips to Australia and New Zealand. She set us up with some very exclusive stuff, and one of the tour guides made it sound like he had done tours with people like Bill Gates and the Clintons and stuff. This was in the fall of 2008, and there was keen interest in the election. It was just a very strange moment, but the guy told us that in all his years of giving tours, he'd "never met a Republican". We weren't wanting to challenge him, so we kind of let it drop.
I don't know. The view of Americans abroad is nuanced, and the more you can speak to people in their own language, the more that becomes apparent. And, of course, there is history unique to Germany as well. On one hand, we export a lot of "culture", but it tends to be the Hollywood stuff. As far as "regular" America, we're pretty much a puzzle to Europeans because even those who come to visit the US again almost never get out of the "tourist zones".
One of my favorite quotes of all time, because it is so true:
“Reverence must be paid even to those sinners whose souls seem to be dead, because it is Christ, who is the life of the soul, who is dead in them; they are His tombs, and Christ in the tomb is potentially the risen Christ.” – Caryll Houselander
I think of Father Zosima, kneeling at the feet of Dmitri Karamazov.
My wife and I are puritans about it, basically. I’ve been preaching the dangers of screens to my patients from before I had kids, it’s just so obviously damaging (spiritually, developmentally, behaviorally, and any other lly you can think of). A few observations:
1. It’s not difficult. Literally every single civilization in history before like 20 years ago somehow raised young children without paw patrol on a tablet during dinner, you don’t need a phd or a will of steel to not poison your child’s soul with corporate garbage. Eating healthy - removing added sugars, processed junk, etc - actually is difficult, time consuming, and can be expensive. But just saying no to Disney+ is easy, quick, and free!
2. It’s so rewarding. Our kids spend hours playing, outside and in, with imaginary dragons, pirates, dinosaurs, Biblical heroes and villains, etc. their brains are sponges, if you provide rich material (Bible stories, classic kids books, etc) they will not be bored, they will flourish, and surprise you with the extent they can entertain themselves. Even if they have no idea who the characters on their pull-ups really are (do you know how hard it is to find toothpaste, diapers, undies, etc without corporate branding?)
3. It might be impossible to do without homeschooling. I know I said it’s easy, and it is, as long as you don’t send your kids to Caesar. But you’re 100% right that it’s so ubiquitous among “normies” that it’s a losing battle without, say, some Benedict option like community…
4. It’s a lost cause. I don’t get it. But I’ve personally seen parents lock their kids in the house for 2 years rather than expose them to a harmless cold… yet these same parents have no problem giving those same children daily access to mind-and-soul-deadening technology (to say nothing of hardcore pornography). It’s poison, and parents just don’t care. Every time we go out, we see kids on screens. Every day in my clinic, I see kids on screens. No matter how much I preach, it falls on deaf ears. I just feel so bad for these poor kids.
Ok, rant over, thank y’all for listening. More here:
https://gaty.substack.com/p/unplugging-your-kids
Ah, expatriate life! Thirteen years away from America this year and I now support the restoration of the aristocracy. And I secretly throw away almost all of the candy my parents send my kids because it's all full of food dyes and corn syrup. It's been a journey, I tell you.
In all seriousness, one of my pivotal red pill experiences that disabused me of my left wing ways was seeing the migration crisis in 2015 up close. The scales fell from my eyes, etc etc. It made me much more critical towards my own unexamined values and assumptions, which were so, so heavily influenced by American campus culture. Which feels immeasurably foreign to me meanwhile.
Where does that come from? What do you think? It was as if we were guilty of sinning against the Ethic Of Consumption, or something. I honestly don’t understand it. I’d love to know what you think. Let’s talk about it in the comments boxes.
My thoughts?
The kinds of things you and your acquaintance talked about are definitely tied to elite class parenting, for example, the restrictions you placed upon television watching in your home.
It seems to me that the resentment might also stem from whatever time period in recent U.S. history where class-based and personal preferences came to be seen as a political stance, and/or a value judgment that those who don't fit our preferences are lacking in some fashion.
Key points I remember: the blue/red state divide, that political and cultural differences are intertwined.
That book, What's the Matter with Kansas? Hillary Clinton claiming that red staters were a "basket of deplorables," or Obama's assertion that red staters cling to their guns and Bibles.
I feel truly blessed that my family, and the one I married into share the important values. But, my MIL truly gets offended when I even raise a SMALL easy fix.
For example, we lived in 600 square feet in NYC, and she cried when I asked get nicely and thoughtfully to stop bringing so much stuff up for the baby, and she cried.
Now we have moved, and she just sneaks stuff into the house for our kids without asking. I just started throwing away without asking. But if I brought it up, she would cry.
Also, she buys organic milk for herself, and scoffs at me buying organic for the kids. I mean, who cares.....
The best form of meditation is in a city park, where you can hear the buses passing by, where there are background noises and aromas and people chatting idly and also birds singing, where there is wind caressing grass. Like Rittenhouse Square in Philly.
But it doesn't matter where you are, all you have to do is focus on ONE of the sensory phenomena, which may well be a cacaphonous sound. Focus on one aspect of the sound wave, or if not sound then focus on something visual, or even a physical sensation, like your breath. You may close your eyes, but you can't close your ears. I meditate with eyes open. However it's done, eventually everything else will become a non-distraction as the concentration takes hold.
Let's say you are in a busy waiting room with five TVs blaring nonsense. It doesn't matter. Wherever you may be, focus in on One Thing with determination to turn everything else peaceful. After a while, even brain patterns are altered by this practice.
My own brain patterns still resemble a homing toad's far more than any Zen master's, and in fact, I believe that prayer and meditation are functionally very similar, so, Sir Toad, you are probably far ahead of me on any quasi-stoic quest to achieve magnanimity amidst chaos, simply because of your consistent, prayerful habits of mind.
I grew up in Southern California where every space is designed to choke out the ability to focus. I live in northern California now. When i visit family in LA the noises are everywhere. It is my belief that they get upset about turning it off in order to have a conversation because it’s too intimate. They prefer to relate as a bubble in a champagne glass, to be a swirling, non-contiguous jumble of meaningless effervescence. They feel protected by the alienation that noise produces. That’s my 2 cents.
The homing toad sounds a lot like the nous.
When our kids were younger we had to fight tooth and claw with their great-grandmother to stop loading them down constantly with crap. One Thanksgiving holiday that we spent with my wife's parents my grandmother in law had brought an entire carload of stuff with her, and tried to transfer it to our minivan. She had so stuffed our minivan with, well, stuff, that our kids had nowhere to put their feet, and my wife and I could barely get our own bags in. And she kept bringing out more, protesting "Well, I got it for them, it's a shame to leave it behind!" I finally yelled "No more! There isn't any more f***ing room in the f***ing car for this garbage! They don't need any more coloring books, dolls, or other junk! They can't even put their feet down! The older 2 can't even get out quickly for bathroom break! [we had a 9 hour drive ahead] I don't care what you [long string of expletives] do with it, but we can't take it, and didn't ask you to buy it!" Neither my parents nor my wife's parents (boomers) ever did that with us, as they too had fought tooth and claw with their parents' generation to stop overloading us when we were kids. I've often wondered if it was something of an after-effect of the Depression.
As for the TV noise, my father is one who always has it going, often far too loudly, but it's usually in another room, and so we can ignore it when we visit. We cut the cable back in 2008, when our children were all quite young, because we were appalled by the garbage on even then. Netflix streaming, however, soon replaced it, though we later cut that too, again appalled by the filth of it. Several years ago we moved our own TV to a basement den, and now it is infrequently used except for movies. The house is nice and quiet now, a pleasant place to read or talk (or yes, mindlessly watch Youtube vids for some, but they have to keep the volume down).