In the autumn of 1993, the Cooper household in Medford, Texas, faced a crisis of modern technology. The family’s beloved VCR—a bulky, top-loading Panasonic that had faithfully recorded everything from 60 Minutes to Star Trek: The Next Generation —had given up the ghost. The motor whirred pathetically, then fell silent. The tape inside, a recording of a PBS special on quantum electrodynamics, was now a prisoner.

“There is no ‘just’ about it, Mother. This machine was the only reliable adult in this house. It never interrupted, never changed the channel, and never made me eat casseroles containing mushrooms.”

Mary stared at him. “You hate musicals.”

“We failed it, Mom,” he said. “The manual clearly states that the heads require demagnetizing every 400 hours. That would be approximately every 11.2 weeks if one recorded an average of five hours per day. We are at 1,247 hours without maintenance. It died a preventable death.”

An Unreliable Witness, a Broken VCR, and the Fragile Nature of Maternal Compromise