Tea or TV

It is early morning. Way too early in my opinion. A school morning. I am trying to rouse myself which is difficult enough. And now I am back for the third or fourth shake awake for Marek. If he doesn't get up soon, I will grab him and yank him out of his blissful bed.

I stumble out into the kitchen, and there is Tildy looking for me, the center of her universe. I wonder why on earth this child willingly crawls out of bed just so she can be near me when she could be enjoying her dreams. Especially since the child who should be getting up is a puddle of resistant goop on the top bunk of his bed.

Like it or not, I no longer have peace in the morning. For my morning ritual. The same one I've had my whole life as long as I can remember in which I make a cup of tea and toast, prop myself up in front of a book, and refuse to interact with another being until I am finished. My college housemates avoided the kitchen in the morning. They knew and respected my patterns. They knew what battles were worth fighting, my habits not being one of them.

My children - that's another story. Why, oh, why won't they leave me alone in the morning? But they don't, and so I have found a tool in which to engage them. So they will leave me alone for a few minutes. So I can drink my tea, and eat my toast, and read my book. The magical tool - it is, of course, the TV.

So this is National TV Turn Off Week. And I'm sorry, I believe in it. But I just can't do it. Not now. Not this year. Not yet.

I did seriously consider pulling the plug this year. The TV usage in our house is actually quite minimal. Tildy still doesn't understand commercials, and I love that! We limit TV (and DVDs) to early mornings, hair-cuts, and special movie events. That's pretty much it for the kids, and since Geoff picked up the Lord of Rings Trilogy, that's been mostly it for us too.

However - THE COMPUTER USAGE! Sick of this! The past few weeks the Star Wars game was banned due to inappropriate behavior (i.e. ignoring their mother), and things have been so p-e-a-c-e-f-u-l. So I did not need National TV Turn Off Week as an excuse. It - the computer - was already turned off. So no need to interrupt my teatime as yet.

I fantasize about being one of those households without a TV or computer. I think we could easily live without a TV. When my children are teenagers and coming home to an empty house and watching TV after school, that is when I might throw out the TV.

But a computer. How could I live without a computer? And really, by the time my kids are teenagers, won't TV and computers be about the same thing?

And so I must limit, limit, limit. What a drag. To be the limiter all the time.

So to encourage instead, if you are actually trying to turn your TV off this week, there is an awesome list of things to do that can be found at: http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/turnoffweek/TV.turnoff.week.html

And in the spirit of National TV Turn Off Week, I will conclude with facts from screentime.org:

How many people are in the average American household? 2.55

How many televisions do they have? 2.73

We are a society of more televisions than people!

50% of American homes have at least 3 televisions or more
19% of homes have only 1.

In 1975 only 11% of US households had more than 3 TVs…and 57% only had 1!

The average American home has the television on for well over 8 hours every day. That is an hour more than just a decade ago.

The average American watches 4 hours and 35 minutes of television each day.

Young people 12-17 years of age increased their television viewing by 3% just this year…a pretty big increase in just 12 months.

Teenage girls have dramatically increased their television viewing late at night and early in the morning…maybe they just don’t sleep anymore?

All the above statistics are from Nielson 2006