What's on TV?

Today I was at Target and I had a mom approach me asking about a particular toy that her child wanted for Christmas. I didn't recognize the name of the toy, so she proceeded to tell me that it was advertised on all the channels and especially on noggin (?). I didn't admit it to her, but I have never even heard of that station! You see, we are a strange family. We do not watch TV. I don't mean that we are morally opposed to it (well, some of it, we might be, but that's another story!), we just don't choose to watch it.

I never intentionally planned to ban TV in my home (and truthfully, it is not banned). When we were first married and struggling, we couldn't justify paying for cable. It was an unnecessary expense. We lasted through 14 years of marriage without it and never knew we were missing anything. Then we moved to Richmond in the age of bundling all your services and the cost for phone and internet was the same as the introductory cost for phone, internet and cable. Always on the lookout for a good deal, how could I pass this up! My teenagers were so excited! They were certain we were the last people on the planet to get cable tv!

For two years, I watched as our life began to revolve around the tv. When the kids got up in the morning, on went the tv. When they got home from school, the tv was on. Following dinner, everyone gathered around to watch the latest shows. Quite frankly, I just did not like it. TV was having too much influence on my family, and I just couldn't see how our lives were better because we had cable. About this time, the economy was falling apart and my husband had to take a pay cut at work. We looked at all discretionary expenses and started cutting back. The first thing to go was cable tv.

The kids moped around the house for a few weeks, turning on the tv randomly and not finding much that interested them. Grumbles and complaints were the norm! Chris and I, on the other hand, found that we were happier with our family life without cable tv. There was more time spent in conversation rather than vegging out on the couch staring open-mouthed at the tv screen! The kids were playing outside more. It was all good. We still watched network tv and there were the shows that we couldn't miss (American Idol was a family favorite), but it just wasn't on as many hours a day as before.

Within a few months, all broadcasts switched to HDTV and our antiquated televisions did not receive the signal. We bought converter boxes for both of them and continued to watch network tv. Over the course of the year, the converter boxes became more and more of a pain. They would freeze the picture several times during the course of a program. The picture would get scrambled and we would have to unplug it and plug it back in multiple times a day just to get it to work.

Eventually, it became too much work, and the two tv's were never turned on. The kids still used them for movies and playing on the wii, but for the most part they were virtually unused. It has been about six months since the kids even mentioned watching something on tv. Shelby is probably the only one who really misses it, but she goes to friends houses to watch shows she likes. Everyone else has found other things to do with their time and really do not miss it. And I am thrilled that television is not an integral part of our lives.