Cutting the Cord -- Living without TV

by Teresa Houser

Where will you be on May 14th? If your like 75 million other Americans youwill be watching the final episode of "Seinfeld".

Where will I be? Home, probably. Watching "Seinfeld"? Not if I'm at home.You see, I live in one of those super-rare (less that 1%) families that doesnot share its domicile with a television.

If you're like most people with whom I have shared my dirty lttle secret youare now responding with a mixture of shock, anxiety and curiosity. Shockbecause I seem normal enough on the surface. Anxiety because you're waitingfor me to pick up the banner of my "cause" and try to convert you. Cureousbecause, lets face it, not owning a television is weird! The questions thatusually follow are things like: "How do live without one?", "Why would youwant to live without one?", "Don't you get bored?", and my favorite "What doyou do with your kids?".

I don't want to bore you with a lot of details, so let me just say that Iused to be normal. My husband (Kirk) and I had a televion, but it broke. Wewanted to get another one, but we were broke. This went on for about fouryears. Each time we decided we had the money and wanted to go out and buy atelevision, something would happen (like the birth of two children) and wewould spend the money but not for a television. That's how it started, as apassive thing. We were busy with two babies and trying to build Kirk'scareer and restore a 100+ year-old home. Our own life was so exciting thatwe didn't need to liven it up with all that quality programming.

Then, one day, a family friend offered to give us her old television forfree. This was our turning point. We had to decide. Kirk and I took a goodlook at our lives and made a tough choice. We decided to remain TV-Free.As a Montessori teacher, I was familiar with research which indicates thatvery young children can not distinguish what they see on television(especially if it is in color) and reality. Basically, to them, televisionis real. This knowledge played a key role in our descision. Besides, at thispoint, we really didn't miss it. Without realizing it, we had progressedfrom passive to active.

That was seven years ago. Our children will soon turn seven and nine yearsold. We still do not have a television. It is an active choice that we make.We fill our days with all the busy things that families do: homework,reading, talking, cooking, playing, etc. I honestly do not know where wewould find the time to watch television.

Without a black box to constantly entertain them, my children have learnedto entertain themselves. They both have very active imaginations and oftendress up for role-playing games or treat us to a puppet show which they havecreated. They also spend an enourmous amount of time playing outdoors.Weather is never an issue unless someone is showing signs of weakness like astuffy nose or cough. Rain, no problem, that's why slickers wereinvented. (When we hear thunder, its time to go indoors.) Cold doesn't stop useither, we just bundle up in hats and gloves and warm coats. We have a bigyard with gardens, swings, a sandbox, a picnic table, and over 30 wonderfultrees for climbing or playing make-believe. Our trees become ships orcastles, or office buildings, or monsters. The possibilities are endless.

So far, the only negative effect we have found to living without televisionis that we have lost our ability to ignore it. Most public places, includingstores, restaurants, and doctors' offices have sets playing continuously. Wefind this horribly irritating. I remember once when my daughter came homefrom a sleepover just miserable because she had not slept AT ALL. It turnsout that the little girl she was visiting sleeps all night with hertelevision turned on. This was so distracting that my daughter could notsleep. And people think we're strange!

Contrary to popular opinion, life without television has not left us totallyisolated and culturally ignorant. My children can hold their own in anyconversation about "Power Rangers" or "Sabrina". We rarely miss significantevents like the World Series or Presidential speeches. Kirk is fond ofsaying that we do not need a television because everyone else we know hasone. We have to compensate for missing valuable educational programming byreading books and traveling to real places like the planetarium, zoo, and anassortment of historical sights.

Hey, you get to try it for the next week...come see what life is like in our house.

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