Over the course of this last weekend, Marisa and I had a revelation.
We watch WAY TOO MUCH TELEVISION.
When Henry wakes up, he immediately says "TV" or "Remote".
I find myself putting things off to watch something on TV, and for those of you who know me, it's not always sports!
We always had a TV on in any room we were hanging out in, even just as background noise. It really hit me when I noticed Gemma, our 4 month old, zoning in on the TV.
My solution is to go TV free, cancelling all of our TV subscriptions. We have HBO, DVR, 2 digital boxes... all gone!
We are starting a 1 week trial of this, but I can say that after 2 days, I am feeling refreshed.
Our house is quiet at night (when the kids are sleeping). Marisa and I are forced to talk to each other more, and I think we will be more in tune with each other, than in tune with the TV.
I really think it will force us to be more creative both with our spare time, and with how we play with our kids, rather than just letting Bob the Builder be our babysitter.
The other thing that made me consider this idea was the thought of the things I am exposing the kids too inadvertently from television. We watch shows where kids people call each other "idiots" or people hitting each other. This sort of stuff I tell Henry not to do, so I wonder about what example I am setting showing him this stuff on TV either on purpose or by accident.
At lunch today, a couple of people were watching an MTV show, and I realized just what rubbish there is on TV. This again showed me the crap I am putting into my head on a daily basis.
We are doing a 1 week trial to see how it goes, but at the moment I am enjoying being Television free. We will see if it changes come Football season.
Massage Me Like a Pina Colada
15 years ago
James you are a wonderful dad. In my day, if our TV signal got fuzzy, my dad made me do this-- I always had to bundle up, climb up our icy antenna 30 ft, wave in the wind, and turn the big arrow so it pointed southwest. They would pound on the window if I started to go back down and the signal was still fuzzy.
ReplyDeleteWe just did the exact same thing. Cable is gone! I realized how little I missed it when we went up to the Boundary Waters for a week. We took the money we are saving every month and signed up for a family membership at the YMCA. Hopefully that will get us off of the couch for a while!
ReplyDeleteGood for you guys!! I am interested to see what you think after a while as I have thought of doing so before.
ReplyDeleteCheers!
Carissa Allen
Kurt and I have the 'limit t.v.' revelation about every other week...and the fact that we have that revelation so often gives you a clue to how well it works for us. I applaud you!
ReplyDelete