The great debate of the decade.

The biggest thing that my spouse and I disagree on in terms in child rearing (so far) is TV. While we’ve been raised in really different ways and in really different times and places, we do have common goals and values that we truly agree on. We knew this before the child thing even came into play. But TV? We just can’t seem to agree on that.

This morning we were sitting on the couch exhausted after having woken up an hour early to clean the house for yet another showing. We were both whining and complaining to each other about how tired we are and I said something to the effect of, “Well, in a month we’ll be more tired. Except there’ll also be a crying baby here and the TV won’t be on.”
“Whaaaaaaaaat?!” said Toby incredulously, even though we’ve been discussing this very thing for months.

I don’t want the baby to look at the TV at all. I hate the way that babies are just drawn to TVs and when they’re in their vicinity can’t keep focus or their eyes averted. Well, it’s not just babies that can’t keep their eyes from the TV; it’s grown men also! I’ve really been pushing for cutting off our cable all together, but we obviously haven’t really gotten to that (or any) level of acceptance yet.

I know that practice is very different that theory and that I could easily get to the point where I need to plunk the child in front of a TV in order to pee by myself once a day. But now that we’re actually in the theory stage of things, I can certainly have ambitious goals! And really? By not watching TV, we’re not missing out on a thing.