I have never owned my own TV.
Ok, so that either makes me an unsophisticated yokel, or a crazy, spittle ridden anti-television crusader guy, right?. Well, maybe. But between us, Kari and I have four computers. We often rent TV series on Netflix. I think the Office is pretty dang funny. And what would Sunday’s in the fall be without the NFL?
The truth is, I’ve never needed one. Either someone else I lived with had one, or I was moving around too much to make owning one practical. Once Kari and I started moving from place to place, we just got used to not watching, and we didn’t miss it.
Fast forward to 4 months ago. We’re now renting a fully furnished condo, replete with two TV’s, and the remote controls. For the first month they sat there unnoticed. Sometime during the second month, I found a pair of rabbit ears stashed in a closet. The third month all heck broke loose. We found that a.m. cartoons had a calming effect on the morning routine. Soon enough, Tory’s first words after getting up were no longer nah-nah (bananna), but Tar-toon (give you one guess). I told myself it was ok, because it was PBS Kids. All educational programming and no commercials, right?
Well, not according to American Academy of Pediatrics. They recommend that kids under 2 watch zero TV. They say it hinders brain development and creativity. They say it leads to attention problems. They probably say a whole lot more, but the article is long, and I’d read enough.
So our little cartoon addict will be getting cut off. We’ll still let him watch his sign language dvd’s once in a while (they’ve helped a lot with his ability to communicate with us). But no more Sid the Science Kid, no more Curious George. No more Thomas. Not for a while, anyway. And for us, it means mornings more engaged with the boy, and less engaged with what ever else we need to do. Which is ok, I spend entirely too much time in front of the computer.
