Kill the TV! We did and lived to tell . . .
January 12th, 2009 · 8 Comments
Top 10 reasons I am glad we killed the TV:
10. The librarians know our entire family by name.
9. We have crazy family dance time at least weekly.
8. Family read alouds are the best! (We recommend Fablehaven series and Candy Shop Wars as two favorites!)
7. LESS NOISE!!!
6. No more trying to quick change the channel during “uncomfortable” commercials.
5. We are actually doing our genealogy/family history work.
4. No longer frustrated by the lack of real news coverage on the local nightly news.
3. One less thing for the kids to argue over.
2. Political ads, need I say more?
1. Our kids didn’t know what to ask for Christmas.
One of my favorite Christmas gifts was from Arwen, our 14 1/2 yo. It was a copy of the poem “Mike TeaVee” from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Ronald Dahl thanking me for getting rid of broadcast TV.
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The most important thing we’ve learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set –
Or better still, just don’t install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we’ve been,
We’ve watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone’s place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they’re hypnotised by it,
Until they’re absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don’t climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink –
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK — HE ONLY SEES!
‘All right!’ you’ll cry. ‘All right!’ you’ll say,
‘But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!’
We’ll answer this by asking you,
‘What used the darling ones to do?
‘How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?’
Have you forgotten? Don’t you know?
We’ll say it very loud and slow:
THEY … USED … TO … READ! They’d READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching ’round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it’s Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There’s Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They’ll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start — oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They’ll grow so keen
They’ll wonder what they’d ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.
by Roald Dahl
To clarify, we do still have a television set. Now about those movies. . .
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Tags: Family Life · Soapbox
Leave a Reply
January 12th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
This is something I’ve often considered, but I’ve never taken the leap. What made you do it?
January 12th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
What a great post for families! I’m going to link to it at my reading lens:
Books I’d Take to a Deserted Island:
http://www.squidoo.com/deserted-island-101
Thanks!
January 12th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
We dumped our TV when we moved. Not that we ever watched it much. ( We’ve never had cable and the choice of 5 channels, 2 of which were spanish never captivated me.) Haven’t missed it at all. Now just have to limit computer time, for myself included….’cuz that one is not going away permanently.
January 12th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
I love, love, love Fablehaven and Candy Shop Wars! Also, the tv shows…not so much a problem. It’s the Wii games!
January 13th, 2009 at 7:30 am
I have always hated commercial TV in principle, (but I had to break my own ER and Survivor addictions.)We were without once before but got it back for the “news”, well I prefer NPR anyway. I only let the kids watch PBS when I was around anyway but we did have cable and it was expensive. The hubby finally consented to drop cable TV over 6 months ago because of budget constraints as well as the worries about what the kids ran into when they we were looking for those good educational shows. The kids never complain except for missing Mythbusters.
I do not allow any video game systems either.(Although Jana I have to admit if any ever tempted us it is the Wii!) We are trying to monitor the computer time and movie time carefully. Always a challenge!
January 13th, 2009 at 7:48 am
Nice blog. We were completely TV-less for about 7 years (ending about 5 years ago) and except for some strange gaps in our TV knowledge when playing trivia games, no regrets. When asked if they felt “deprived”, my children break into memory bursts about outside play, playmobile/action figures and BOOKS. (Oh yeah, and we talk to each other.) Now that there is TV with a million channels, it doesn’t seem to wield hypnotic power over anyone. I would do it all over again. All of the kids (there are five of them!) have said at one point or another that they will have their own children live TV-less at least for a season.
January 13th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Can’t live without ESPN!
March 24th, 2009 at 8:41 am
we’ve had nothing but rabbit ears for over year now, its great. we do watch on occasion and when i’m out of town i catch up on ESPN and other things, but I quickly some of the reasons we dropped it. I get hypnotized!!! It also saves money. We let the kids watch Word World, Super Why which are great. Other than that there are only a couple of shows we let them watch on occasion, the only one NOT on PBS is Spiderman on satudays. Then of course there are the videos and DVDs. We could cut down more I’m sure. Great Poem though. Think how long ago that was written and how disgusted the author was WAAAAY back then even. He’d die today wouldn’t he? Great suggestion on Family read out loud time. We end up dancing because we’re nuts anyway!