Television Will Turn Your Baby into a Teen Mom

I judge you because you watch television.

The only thing I watch is Coronation Street. Religiously, I admit, but my grandparents
watched it, so it’s a family tradition that I’m passing on to my daughter, who yells “More!”
when the theme song ends. (That’s really the only part she pays attention to. That and
the commercials.)

Also, sometimes I watch 30 Rock and Community. I like to support quality programming.
And my one guilty pleasure is anything with hoarders in it. Or fat people. Or pregnant
teens. Or now, thanks to a week spent with my parents, storage lockers.

And then there’s stuff like Dexter, Weeds, Californication…anything from HBO and
Showtime. Once again, quality programming. My latest obsession is True Blood, which
killed my productivity for most of the winter. I blame that on my friends, though — at
least a dozen people told me I had to watch it, so of course I listened to them.

Hmm. I guess maybe a lot of people watch less television than I do, so I’m probably
in no position to judge. But I do judge you because you let your kid watch television.
My daughter isn’t allowed to watch television. (Except, of course, Corrie. And the odd
hockey game or tennis match. A kid needs role models, after all.) I’ve read the research
about ADHD and such; I’ve seen how Cookie reacts to commercials; I’ve made my
decision. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule; if we’re in someone else’s home, or my aunt is
graciously babysitting, I don’t care.

This TV ban wasn’t always in place. Early on, when Cookie was just a couple months
old and our days consisted solely of breastfeeding and changing diapers and napping,
the only other thing we could manage to do was watch television. I like South American
guys with great legs; the World Cup was on. We were thinking of selling our condo; I
was obsessed with HGTV. A fellow new mum admitted to me at the time that she was
watching a lot of judge shows. I got it. Besides, how much was really sinking in for our
babies at that point?

There have been other exceptions to the rule. Recently I needed to distract Cookie so
I could get some work done, so I thought I’d check out Sesame Street. It’d been a few
decades since I last saw it, so naturally I was curious. Straight off the bat I regretted
it. The first bit was about princesses. Grr. I had assumed Sesame Street was more
enlightened than that, but apparently they’ve bought into the whole princess obsession
too. Mind you, the princesses learned that they were perfectly capable of solving
problems themselves and didn’t need to be rescued by a prince, and the hapless
prince was played by Paul Rudd, who I adore, so there were some redeeming qualities.
But today’s show was sponsored by the letter P, so naturally princesses made more
than one appearance. I was furious that Sesame Street would even acknowledge the
existence of princesses. TV experiment #1 failed. Also, Cookie wasn’t that interested.
She mainly likes commercials.

Right now Cookie is with my aunt, probably blissfully watching Dinosaur Train. Which is
fine. But not on my watch. Not until I’ve got another deadline, at least. Guess I’m in no
position to judge.

-East End Mama