TGM

to which I reply:

I agree. But that really isn't the issue here....... there is a huge difference between some guy going out to buy a $130k car to act as an extension of his penis and to compensate for his widening bald spot, versus a guy who feels compelled to ditch a harmless hobby he enjoys because he thinks his wife might get ANGRY at him. Deja Vu.

Peep

The way I read it, was that XBOX360 was going to sell off part of collection because he feared that child-rearing would eat into his movie watching time. He ended up keeping the collection but said that he was scared to bring up the topic of buying a Blu-ray player with his wife.

So he's not ditching his hobby out of fear of his wife, he's just holding off on spending $600-$800 on it. Perfectly reasonable. Perhaps he feels like he needs to encourage one of her hobbies first. Perhaps he needs to buy her a new tub, like you did your wife, to indulge in her bathing hobby.

TGM

Why not try re-reading the title of this thread, and see if your reply makes any sense.

Peep

It makes perfect sense.

You said: He's wasn't going to ditch his hobby because of fear of his wife, it was so he could spend more time with his kid. The only "wife-fearing" was in regard to buying an HD player.

So, your penis-extension analogy was what really made no sense.

SanityRemoved

Like many who have responded I too have kids(teens+).

You can either be an influence or let someone else be an influence. The time is going to fly by and suddenly they are watching some form of tv. The majority of dvdtalkers can be excellent guides in shaping a child's view of film. The child will see plenty of garbage on tv with or without your consent. You are going to have to explain things when watching certain films but that is part of parenting. One of the pluses of the Hayes Code is that there is a large amount of films that can be viewed without having to cough loudly, hit the mute button or some other method of distraction to avoid the words tender ears shouldn't hear.

Want your child to be fluent in another language? Start them young on DVDs. Sadly America is way too slow at introducing foreign languages. Wouldn't it be great to find some film that you have always wanted to see, but it is only in Japanese with no subtitles. Oh wait, your teen who has been watching Japanese films since he was born can translate for you, nice work.

Baby keeps you up, dvd to the rescue.

As for keeping things out of reach, anything you value should remain out of reach until the child consistently demonstrates what can and can't be touched. Children can show a great deal of intelligence but their understanding of cause and effect takes a lot of time and patience. That sealed, out of print dvd that you were going to sell on ebay just got unwrapped and written on with a sharpie. Why? Because that is what they saw Mommy and Daddy do.

Egon's Ghost

Good for you for sticking with the collection. I have a small collection, most of it R-rated, but damned if I'll get rid of it. I love my 1-year-old daughter, but I won't sacrifice the things I like completely. I still find time to play some PC games, even. She goes to bed between 7 and 8. True, we don't watch movies very often, but we did when she was younger. She actually watches now so we try to limit it and avoid anything not appropriate for her. I remember watching non-kids' stuff with my parents in elementary school, so we're stocking up on stuff like Muppets, Addams, Looney Tunes, etc., but also Star Wars, Labyrinth, Princess Bride--non-R-rated stuff we liked as kids. Still waiting for that SE of Beetlejuice, consarnit...
And we have a few Czech films that aren't terribly R-rated, with English subs, so hopefully she'll appreciate a wide variety of stuff.

I saw stuff like The Thing and Alien when I was 5-7 years old, which gave me nightmares until my adult years, so I want to monitor that kind of stuff...