Raise your hand if you were raised on the boob tube? Me me me...my hand is high in the air. I did my homework in front of it, I vegged in front of it, slept, ate, hung out with friends...I was ALWAYS in front of the tv. I could tell you at least 5 story lines to different soap operas, I watched every talk show at the same time (clicked back and forth on commercials), I was a genius at all the game shows (still a secret desire of mine to be on Press Your Luck..."No More Whammies". I studied hard the make out techniques on Dallas and Dynasty...the list goes on. However, I also loved the comedy sitcoms in the evening. I watched them all...and remember most of them well...I could give you verbatim dialog now...which is where my story is supposed to be starting.
We have not had cable in our house for about 5 years now. We purposely don't use an antennae to find the basic networks...however, NBC comes in clear as a bell. I LOVED the television but what I found over the years is that my kids did too. They quickly ran to the tv for entertainment, I used it as a babysitter and most everything was offensive to me. I couldn't bear letting the words, images, relentless advertisements into the ears and heart of my wee ones any longer...so bye bye to cable.
Benefits: Kids in bed by 8...3 hours with my honey every night that doesn't include ignoring each other to watch our favorite shows. My kids don't know what's "cool"...they only recently learned who Zack and Cody are, watched their first Sponge Bob episode via a rental and brand names don't mean anything to them. They spend their day doing everything else but watching tv...we're grateful however for online rentals for those tired moments when we all want to veg.
Final favorite point: We run out of new G rated movies quickly so I've jumped back a few decades in my brain to the shows I loved as a kid and guess what...they're ALL available through Netflix!!! Here's our list of favorites if you are looking for some great, entertaining 80s shows to reminisce with, laugh with your kids with, or to just admire Cliff Huxtable's sweaters. In order of the most requested in the Hamik home:
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Little House on the Prairie *
Brady Bunch *
Cosby Show *
Punky Brewster *
Leave it to Beaver *
Flintstones/Jetsons *
Smurfs *
Full House (a little sassy) *
Gummi BearsMy final encouragement is this: our world wants to grow our kids up so fast. We can only do so much to shelter them from it, short of wrapping them in bubble wrap. One easy way to protect them from things their little minds cannot yet process with maturity is to be the big bad mean...or strong loving determined parent and say no to many of the things on the tv/movies that they want to see. Things that are entertaining to us aren't always processed the same in their wee minds. GIRLS ESPECIALLY: if our 7 year olds are contantly watching, "Isn't he sooo cute or I wish he liked me", then that is what they will deem valuable. We need to inundate our girls with love, acceptance and worth based on the fact that they are princesses...not in the Hollywood sense but as royalty...as God Almighty's daughter. We diligently use the following site before allowing our kids to watch anything that is above G rated. They'll call from sleepovers to ask us to look up movies before they watch and they're usually confident to say, "No, thank you" if we decide it's not appropriate. It's a blessing to us in helping us discern for our kids...isn't it our responsibility anyway?http://www.pluggedinonline.com/movies/
