Three Children, 13 Years, No Television

“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