Television

The Old Schoolhouse just sent out a weekly newsletter with the theme Television. This is an off and on again topic in our home so I read with interest what others had to say. It is amazing how many adults of today were raised on Television, my husband and myself being among them. It is hard to think of not having that connection to the outside world, that portal of news, entertainment, how-to shows, and animal rescue channels. But unless you are a very disciplined person (I am NOT) this portal also brings a lot of exposed skin, back talk, bad attitude, commercialism and many other things I really do not want my kids exposed. I would not let my children bring home or be among people who behaved this way so why would I allow them to give undivided attention to a screen showing and encouraging this behavior. We currently do not have cable or public television. We haven't had it for close to 4 years now. As much as I would love to say this is because we made a conscious decision to take the smut out of our lives this isn't entirely accurate. We moved into a house that is unable to get the little satellite and cable is not available on our street which means we also do not get a signal for public television either. We have chosen to go without. I know many people that have chosen this avenue that would never turn back and haven't missed a day of television but we have missed it on certain days. I'm a political junkie and I would have loved to watch the election results as they rolled in, I feel out of the loop on a lot of news and political happenings. My husband loves Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel and we both have longed to just veg in front of the Home and Garden Channel. Now we do own a television, 2 actually, and we do rent movies, a lot of movies. And for the most part we are very careful about what we let the kids watch. I have had a few slip-ups from being lazy or forgetting about a certain scene but for the most part I love this way of watching TV. My kids will watch and enjoy things I wold have never watched and much less enjoyed as a kid. My 5 & 4 year old were enthralled with Hamlet last night, I had a hard time making myself watch it as an adult. They love musicals and movies from great literature as well as animal exploration & discovery movies. The other day my 5 year old was trying to wrap his head around the concept of all day television. My 8 yr old tried to explain to him, " You know, it's like when we go to a hotel & turn on the TV and it just comes on and the shows stay on until we turn it off." His eyes got huge as he realized that wasn't just something special they did at a hotel, people have that in their homes. I would like us to curb our movie watching a bit as that can get a bit excessive but it's still a better option than non-stop bombardment of scantily clad chicks selling toothpaste. We may at some point have television in our home again but I dread the day because I know I am weak and I am afraid I will become complacent with all of the junk on TV & start thinking it really isn't that bad, like I did before.