Life Without Television
Posted by Rachel Balducci in Family on Friday, September 24, 2010 10:03 PM
As a mother of five boys, my eye was certainly drawn to Arwen’s post about boys and electronic media . We have a gaming system in our home and when I let the boys cart it out (I keep it under lock and key) it rarely bears good fruit. It’s all fun and games for about ten minutes before the frets set in.
As a family, we do so much better without the glow of the tube, shows, DVD’s and video games included.
On September 1, we turned off our television. The impetus was a desire to get focused for the start of school, a reboot after a long hot summer and just a general mental deep breath. Every year, we treat the month of September like a mini-Lent, taking on a renewed spiritual focus, trying to pay less attention to the media and more attention to God.
This September I was especially motivated because of our long summer with a newborn. We watched way more TV than I’d care to admit and it was time to just unplug. So we did.
The fruit of this decision has been miraculous.
In our home, the peace is palpable—but only since we unplugged. These days, instead of sitting in a trance in the front room, the boys are playing games and reading books and talking about issues (maybe not the same issues that interest you and me of course, but issues nonetheless). Bottom line: we have no plans to plug back in.
The other day, I asked the boys if they missed having the TV around.
“No way,” answered one boy. “Having no TV makes us do the stuff we’re supposed to do—you know, like shooting BB Guns and riding our bikes and digging holes in the backyard!”
It’s true turning off the tube can create a few more, um, side effects, but I’ll take it. Life without TV is beautiful indeed.
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