“No television?!”
a parent at one of the school functions exclaimed loudly to me during
our homestead days. I was surprised at her reaction as if our choice of not
having television was a crime against our children. I tried to explain, but as
we humans often do when we have a strong opinion about a social topic, she
looked at me pretending to listen, but I could almost hear her brain
calculating a dozen loud reasons why we have
to have television. And there it was. Before finishing the last word of my
explanation she was on me with a barrage of considerations why I must bring the
box back into our lives.
GROWING UP WITHOUT TELEVISION
“What do you do at night?” another parent interested in
the almost conversation asked. We talk, we make cookies, we read. I read the
entire series of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little
House on the Prairie. The children went to bed comfortably sharing their
thoughts about each chapter. Years later my daughter listened to her college
dorm mates discuss Little House on the Prairie with events she never heard of
until she realized they were talking about the television series of their own
childhoods.
Our children became voracious readers each checking out
seven to ten books at a time from the library. One day they practically
demanded that I read C.S. Lewis’ The
Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
so we could talk about it. As I read this famous “children’s” book, I was
horrified by so much of the violence and prejudicial innuendos. I had to write
out my thoughts so we could discuss the piece calmly. That was the essence of
our life without television – we had conversations.
For 13 years the pop culture world influenced by
television went on without us. Think about your experiences a decade ago – life
changes subtly but surely so that at the reflection moments of ten or more
years we are shocked at what was and how our personal world had changed.
Thirteen years in a child’s life is a very long time.
AND THE RESULTS ARE . . .
If this were an experiment on the effects of this
dominant connection to the world I can tell you the response from these
children and their use of television today is bonded with the changes in the
medium itself. Television is now cable, but even more it has taken a broad and
narrow path in communication all at the same time. Each of my adult children
pays at least $200 a month for the broadest reach of their TV, particularly
sports and movies. They are frustrated if the service is interrupted, partly
because the television is also “bundled” with numerous other communication
“devices” in their homes including The Computer. This is our brave new world.
The effects of thirteen years without television? Nothing. They never missed a
beat. They moved smoothly onto the super cyber highway.
As for Joel and I, we too have joined the world with
computers and smarter than us cell phones. As for television itself, hmm . . .
we still abhor the endless repeated commercials that treat us as if we had only
one cell functioning in our brains. We watch a few commercial television shows
and resent that we are paying for those commercials. We are fortunate to get
the Canadian station CBC for a wider perspective of The News. Then there is PBS
– Public Broadcasting System.
Ah, PBS beauty and thought-provoking, uplifting and
challenging, and the distinct absence of commercials every 7 minutes. America
Revealed, hosted by Yul Kwon, has had a big influence on my reflective thinking
about our homestead/business experiment days. We have all changed terrifically.
We are facing an exciting new world in food production, renewable energy
applications, global sharing. Wait a minute, maybe it isn’t so new, but rather
founded and expanded on things learned in previous days. Just what did we learn
then? I’ll let you know what comes out of those considerations in another blog.
Your feedback is greatly appreciated. I hope you get a
chance to read A Homestead Decade: How
Crunchy Granola Changed My Life (Amazon – Kindle good on any e-reading
device – there’s that word again). C’mon back soon.
Helene
