The Boob Tube

Harrison has suddenly become character/brand conscious, and I am scared. It is totally our fault, because we did, as you know, encourage him to watch and dance to the Muppet Season 1 DVDs for a few minutes every day for the past three months. (On a side note, he has started calling the Muppets "BowBow" for reasons Doug and I aren't privy to.) We've branched out a bit with the Sesame Street 25th anniversary DVD, which contains all the classic songs and a few other vintage gems and (thankfully) very little Elmo.

As far as live TV goes: he gets about 5 minutes of local news/weather with his dad every morning and a little bit of Sesame Street on Saturday and Sunday, if we get out of bed in time. He sometimes has the patience to glance at some of the other PBS shows on the weekend, in the midst of his play: Bob the Builder, Thomas the Tank Engine, and Between the Lions. We also watch our only adult weekend TV together: The Sunday Morning show on CBS. It is the best show ever made in the history of mankind (and if you don't watch it, you are LAME because Charles Osgood is awesome, especially when he sings bizarre little rhyming songs about current events). Harrison disagrees and thinks it is the most boring show in the history of mankind and usually finds some other way to amuse himself when it's on.

Anyway, as I was saying, Harrison is now aware of the Muppets (both of the Sesame and Show variety) as a brand. This awareness is sometimes bad. Already I've experienced a couple of supermarket and toy store breakdowns when Elmo or Ernie has been spotted from afar. I see on the horizon tantrums over the latest Elmo toy and begging to be taken to some evil ice shows.

I'm still working out my feelings about the role of TV in our household. What I have come up with so far:

I do not think that TV is a purely evil presence that needs to be banned from our household completely.

I recognize and resent that most kids TV shows exist to sell products, both the products that are advertised during the show and merchandise related to the show itself. Everything these days is cross promoted. You can get sponge bob cereal, underwear, blow-ups, and party hats. You can probably get sponge bob vacuum cleaner bags. It truly scary how much junk is marketed at children and the parents of children Harrison's age.

PBS shows are less evil. Maybe. We don't have cable, so Harrison's live TV viewing is limited to the kids programming on PBS. Yes, PBS is not for profit and their shows are mostly praised for being educational. But their kids shows are still a brand. I have read that Sesame Street is what first brought PBS national attention and I don't doubt that it is their biggest cash cow, what with all the Elmo vacuum cleaner bags and whatnot.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with us using the TV as a babysitter for 10 minutes or so at a time.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with us using the TV as entertainment to watch and talk about and dance and sing to together for 30 minutes or so at a time.

Like it or not, TV-watching is a cultural norm for kids and I don't want Harrison to be a complete social misfit just because he's never seen Spongebob. I grew up with a strict, small diet of TV (no cable and it was off after 5 o'clock every school day) and I have a very vivid memory of all the kids in 5th grade talking about Inspector Gadget and being embarrassed that I had no idea what they were talking about.

Obviously, I don't have a plan worked out and this is something that Doug and I need to discuss. I know the answer will ultimately have something to do with this magic word: moderation. I'm just not sure yet of the specifics. I do think that the absence of cable in our house will help mitigate the problem of TV addiction and marketing overload. I do know that I want Harrison to spend a lot of time at the library and to play outside and work on art projects like I did growing up. I'm just not sure how TV fits into that equation.

And I haven't even yet begun to think about video games…