This proved too much for mother.
My parents, who read this blog regularly, are wonderful. They truly are. They only desire to see me wearing shoes without holes in them and have a coat during the winter. On that note, parents, please send both of those things to area code 94122.
They are, for the most part, wonderful people who raised me on the firm belief that television was a treat, and that in general, the shows the children watched should keep sex and witchcraft to a minimum. In my many years of television watching, I’ve undergone some awkward moments with the parents that came from a surfeit of one or both of these elements.
1. The Bachelor/Bachelorette (with Dad): Something about women in tight gold dresses slinking around one bare chested man in a quest for true love just doesn’t scream good father-daughter watching material. On the other hand, 20 men puffing their chests out and wrestling each other to win the heart of a woman is probably more terrifying for a father.
2. Lady Gaga on American Idol (with Mom): Let’s just say she’s more comfortable with clothing made out of textiles.
3. Charmed: I can’t remember what put this on the banned list, but I bet someone was making out with a warlock and it was just too weird for my parents to imagine any of it could be wholesome. “Change it,” Dad said.
4. Sabrina the Teenage Witch: Maybe the talking cat pissed off my parents? Harvey and Sabrina held hands too closely? I’m really not sure about this one, but I do know it was a show we weren’t technically allowed to watch.
5. The Office: This is a family friendly, funny show, right? WRONG. You’d never notice it unless Mom is sitting right there, but every other sentence is about sex, which is evil.
6. Family Guy: See above.
7. Late Night with Conan O’Brien: Lucky for me, my parents went to bed before 12:30 and never got to see how soul-rotting this show was. All I can say is that if they’d ever witnessed the masturbating bear, they would have thought twice about letting me stay up so late by myself.
8. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno: Sometimes Jay was just a little too racy to watch with the whole family. Also, he was/is depressingly unfunny.
9. The Office, British Version: One episode featured a dildo. Need I say more?
10. Dancing with the Stars: The dancing is beautiful and the grinding can be horrific.
Safe bets:
Extreme Makeover Home Edition
The 5 o’clock news
Snotting black 
Great blog post, so true and definitely made me chuckle and think of movies and tv shows I regret watching with my own parents haha 😛
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Exercised my smile muscles as usual – now for breakfast and Scooby Doo 🙂
happy morning!
When I was a kid, I remember watching Star Search with my parents and wanting to leave the room when the spokesmodel segments came on. Those ladies always wore bikinis and slunk around so seductively that it was just too awkward to have to watch them with my parents.
Haha–the slinking definitely makes an uncomfortable atmosphere, like everyone knows it shouldn’t be happening.
any romantic film with kissing “not a good idea” also I remember my mum not letting us watch things that were to brutal … many an action film was banned
pecks are okay, but anything farther than a 5 second make-out is definitely in the uncomfortable zone. Animated films are often good choices.
i always change the channel during a sex scene.
my mother then calls me a prude.
If only my mother were so…..free-spirited?
no, you dont wish it. watching a steamy sex scene with your parents is awful
Don’t forget the ever creepy self absorbed “Big Brother House”
That’s definitely not on the safe list.
“Change it!” I can hear his voice.
Oh my….I wonder what your mother (my sister) would have thought of my watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Saw IV, and Arrested Development and Modern Family with my guys. Let’s say we had some interesting family discussions!
She would have said “yuck!”