(This is the last post in our new series, “The Tantrum,” in which each of our four regulars will address one subject over the course of a week. Read the previous ones here, here and here.)
Reading the other wagoneers’ responses to this week’s Tantrum subject—TV or not TV—has been a terrifying process for me. Unlike Theodore, I have strong feelings about the issue. Unlike Nathan, I’m not recovering from anti-TV Nazism. And unlike Christopher, I have no hope of producing a daughter who’s better and more virtuous than her parents.
The simple fact is, I watch a lot of TV. Too much, probably. I watch shows I don’t like and shows I’ve seen before and shows that I didn’t like the first time around but will watch again because, hey, the sun has set and I’m just too tired to do anything else. I watch crime dramas and terrorist dramas and whatever Fox is planning to cancel. Sasha’s mother, meanwhile, watches anything about marriage, house-hunting, singing, or dancing. We watch TV while eating. We eat TV while watching.
This is probably not good, but Sasha has—so far—mostly escaped boob-tube addiction. In large part, this is because, at 1 year old, she’s not really capable of watching most shows. She’s outgrown the “Look at the flashing lights!” stage but hasn’t quite entered the “I understand and love Dora the Explora” stage. For a long time, we played for her “Baby Signing Time,” a DVD that purports to teach infants and toddlers the rudiments of sign language. And it seems to have worked—she can sign “milk” and “all done,” but there her development has ceased.
Maybe that’s because we’ve cut back on “Baby Signing Time.” For months, it was a great babysitter for her, freezing her in her tracks for 20, 40, 60 minutes at a stretch. But that seemed like too much, so we retired it, striving to be more virtuous ourselves—if only while Sasha’s awake. Now the DVD comes out maybe once a week, and the kid is overjoyed when she hears the first strains of familiar music: “Baby, baby, baby signing time…”
Still, on the rare occasions that Sasha is exposed to actual TV, it’s fascinating to see what she gravitates toward. Judy Garland in “Meet Me in St. Louis” attracted her rapt attention, but Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz” did not. SpongeBob gets a bit of a reaction, but most other shows don’t; she’ll happily play with her toy airplane or pretend to read books while I shout out answers—no, sorry, questions!—during “Jeopardy!”
But recently I let her watch “Yo Gabba Gabba!” on my laptop. For the entire show, she was transfixed, slackjawed, a complete pixel-zombie, unable even to bash the MacBook’s keyboard. On the one hand, I was quite happy: It’s an amazing show, one that I can watch myself quite happily, no child necessary. But her devotion, her own amazement shocked me—I had at my disposal a powerful weapon, and one that I must deploy strategically.
Problem is, I lack self-control. I know that a certain stage, the temptation to click play will grow too strong, and zap—the Gross family are pixel-zombies once more. But what can I do? Chuck the TV and the laptop? Isn’t there some value in my being able to watch “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” on Hulu?
And so we will sit, and eat, and watch, and wait, trembling before the 720p glow of the Samsung, relishing the poison, drooling as one, wishing we could do better for ourselves, wishing we could do better for Sasha, but, more importantly, wishing there were something better on tonight.
(Got an issue you want addressed in The Tantrum? Let us know in the comments!)
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