Am I Ready to End my Relationship with TV?

I’m having issues with TV.

I like TV. I grew watching TV. We had a TV in the living room and kitchen. Later in my youth I had a 13” color TV in my room. David likes TV. He grew up watching TV and playing video games. In his house there was a TV in every room. In fact, when I moved in with him and his dad and sister, we eventually made a living room (the bed was the couch) out of his room. He had a 27” TV in his room. I still had my little 13” with me in mine. His sister had a TV in her room. His dad a TV in his.

Today, my 13” in my kitchen, the 27” in our bedroom. A nice 45” is in the living room. And at any given point of the day ONE of those TVs are on. I want to say we’re addicted to TV, but I’d feel guilty saying that. Sometimes I can turn off the TV (like right now).

We see children all the time glued to the TV. Watching movies on DVD, watching children’s shows, watching cartoons. Some are so tuned in to the TV they are oblivious to what’s going on around them.

Recently, my friend and sister-in-law gave up TV. They don’t have cable. My friend has an HD antennae, but because he’s using a projector instead of a traditional TV, it’s rarely on. (He does have a TV in the bedroom where his girlfriend watches TV.) My sister-in-law just rents movies from Netflix and owns some movies on her own. She can’t escape totally from TV because she has an 8 and 6 year old.

When I got pregnant, David and I decided that we did not want our child addicted to TV like we are. We’d rather our children listen to music, do activities and watch the occasional educational show or play the occasional video game. We do not want TV so much a part of their lives that we have to peel them from in front of the TV. We do not want Spongebob to raise our child.

But how can we do it when we are so into TV? David needs it to fall asleep at night. I used to need it to keep me from going insane. We TiVo a bunch of shows and that’s how we spend our evenings…sitting in front of the TV, eating dinner, talking about the day and/or having our laptops open.

What do children do to occupy their time without TV? That’s been the never-ending question. In theory, my answer would be turn music on (we were thinking jazz or classical, not rap or pop) and have activities…coloring, crafts, legos, drawing, etc. I know children do what they know. If they don’t know the TV, they won’t be so pre-occupied with it. But can David and I refrain from popping on the old tube? I’d really like to take the stance both my sister-in-law and friend have – use the TV for pleasure instead of dependency. I think we can do it. No…I KNOW we can do it.

Right now, I did not turn on the TV after taking my shower. It’s been off now for a few hours. Instead I put my iPod on. I get so sick of daytime TV that sometimes it’s just better to turn it off. This is fine if I have something to do. Like write, design, read…any activity. But what if I don’t have anything to do? Do I just sit here? Oh I know…I should get off my butt and find something to do. That would be great in a perfect world, but right now, moving around is difficult and I’m supposed to be off my feet as much as possible. I guess I could go through our extensive DVD collection and just pick a few to watch throughout the day instead of what’s on TV.

I’m not fully ready to commit to the level of disengagement of TV like others have. I don’t want to cancel cable…I like some of the shows on cable. I’m not ready to give up the TV in the bedroom. I am willing to sacrifice the TV in the kitchen…that’s only in there to keep me company when I cook. But music works just as well. And pretty soon I’ll have company of the infant kind so I won’t need either music or TV.

TV, can we still be friends?