Age certifications

[Josquius]

I figure with what I want to ask here there may be a generation gap.
The question that came to mind for me was how did your parents treat you with regards to age restrictions. For example some parents are known for not given a toss and buying their kids any 18 certificate thing they want whereas on the other end of the scale there are some who won't even let their 11 year old see an obviously OK 12 certificate film.

Considering certification is largely a product of the 1980s and the rise of VHS tapes, and they didn't really come into their own until the 90s or even the 2000s with games and cheap videos, many of us may not have experience with dealing with them as a kid...most of those people however do have experience of dealing with them as parents I would imagine.
So if you wish, then invert the question, how do you treat age certs with your kids.

Poll broken. But hopefully discussion less so.


This question came on after seeing an old documentary about violent video games damaging our yoof and yelling at the screen that all the games they were mentioned are 18 certs...Except of course my parents had no problem letting me play them.

[Grey Fox]

I. I don't know.

I haven't had to cross that particular bridge yet but I seriously don't know.

[Syt]

Computer games: wasn't supervised much, but that was back in the C64 days, when most software came from floppy copying sessions with friends. I was 16-18 when I had my SNES, and I while some games go censored (e.g. the heroes in the German version of Contra 3 are robots, and the game was called "Super Probotector". By the time I had a PC I was 18.

Movies: little supervision for TV. I had a little black and white TV in my room where I would sometimes stay up late and watch stuff like Christopher Lee's Dracula. When I was 9 or so I decided to watch Poltergeist, but I kept switching back and forth because I was scared. I still haven't watched the movie in its entirety. Aliens which I watched around the same age wasn't an issue. The TV in the bedroom was very useful around 1990 when I was ca. 14, when the young commercial TV stations started to show skin flix (soft porn movies, and a lot of 1970s German sex comedies - nothing of that was hardcore) on Friday and Saturday nights.

On VHS, my parents let us watch most stuff with them, even if movies were rated age 16 (like James Bond, or Iron Cross) but I think we didn't get to watch any 18+ stuff (which would have been the splatter/gore genre, mostly, at the time, and porn).

[Admiral Yi]

I still can't watch The Exorcist all the way through. 

[garbon]

My parents were totally by the book with me but totally lax with my siblings.

[Duque de Bragança]

Really depends on the country. Germany and his ridiculous certification laws which bans for people under 18 or even puts to the index some movies which get no special treatment elsewhere e.g Warrior of the Lost World (MST3K material).

Lots of games probably played by Syt were in this index:
Ikari Warriors, Commando, Golden Axe etc.

http://www.mobygames.com/game-group/bpjs-bpjm-indexed-games/offset,350/so,1d/

I can't see myself doing that but then I was not supervised. The only time I got a remark was when my father commented on the cutesy nature of a Japanese RPG and said I should play better games as before such as the one with the G.I (Guile).
Of course, nowadays are much more realistic in appearance (the un-games/interactive movies such as Call of are but their self-regenerating and scripted nature more than compensate for it).

[merithyn]

Are they laws now? The ratings used to be just voluntarily followed by movie theaters, video game stores, and video rental places.

Either way, I watch the movie first, then decide if my kid(s) are able to watch it. Can they watch it with their friends, or do they need an adult present to talk it through after? With video games, I tried to do the same thing, though most of the time it was more of the "talking it through after/during" with most of those.

Me: "You know that shit's not real, right?"
Kids: "Of course, Mom. It's a cartoon!"
Me: "Okay. Have some cookies."

I'm old enough that though there were movie restrictions when I was a kid, none of the theaters were hard-core about it.

[Valmy]

I was terrified of most movies when I was a kid so this was not an issue for my parents 

As a teen they could not have cared less.  I pretty much watched whatever I wanted but since I was usually playing computer games or watching/playing sports this was not really an issue then either.

[lustindarkness]

I had to read the second paragraph to understand what you were talking about.

[crazy canuck]

I have used the age certifications as a rough guide as to how vigilent I need to be.  In a world where the boys could access anything they want to what via the internet it is a lot better to teach them to have good judgment about what they should be watching then to have rules that require no judgment.

[Syt]

Speaking of age restrictions when growing up in Germany.

German kids in the 80s/90s never had the games arcade experience. Coin fed entertainment boxes were restricted to 18+ only venues (together with the machines where you could gamble for money). The government didn't trust kids with their money on this. There were no compunctions about cigarette vending machines on almost every street corner, though.

Also, going to a video store was not possible. Because of the bad, bad movies that might be on display there, video stores were only open to adults.

[Admiral Yi]

How old did you have to be to go to a brothel?

Could one slip in at 16?

[Razgovory]

I still can't watch The Exorcist all the way through. 

Yi can no longer stand the sight of a Jesuit priest.

[Admiral Yi]

Raz is just phoning it in now. 

[Razgovory]

Raz is just phoning it in now. 

C'mon, hit your self.  Do the face palm, I live for the face palm.