I grew up in a house without a lot of television. My parents would periodically turn off the cable for years at a time. The rabbit ears didn’t pick up any channels, so that meant the TV was dead. It was a movie or nothing, at least until Mom and us kids left on vacation and my dad put in a desperate call to Comcast. We’d have cable for another 3 months until Mom would get tired of having zombie kids and pull the plug.
Unlike my own mom, motherhood has made a couch potato out of me. Sitting and rocking a fussy infant for hours at a time can be physically taxing, but really boring, especially in a room by yourself with no one to talk to. So I’ve been hitting the boob tube pretty hard. In the last three and a half months, I’ve watched...
Castle - 4 1/2 seasons
Burn Notice - 3 seasons
Battlestar Galactica - 2 1/2 seasons
Avatar - 2 seasons
Monk - 6 seasons
Psych - 3 seasons
The Mentalist - 4 1/2 seasons
Downton Abbey - 2 seasons
Once Upon a Time - 1 season
White Collar - 2 seasons
And then I made the mistake of looking up research about the effects of TV on infant cognitive development. The upshot? It ain’t good. Shortened attention spans, sleep disturbances, and a delay in motor skills make the price of vegging out pretty steep.
So now I have this inner battle between shame and ennui. Do I choose the baby or The Big Bang Theory? Motherhood or Mentalist? I’d love to be able to do both, but experts say even having the TV on in the background can be detrimental. Books don’t help because a) I don’t have any and b) they require the use of your hands and as any mom knows, you never have one to spare. (Anya has decided that she wants to be held as often as possible, but only in a sitting position facing out so she can look around. When she’s tired, she also requires being bounced in said position. I’m developing some pretty kick-butt calves and biceps.)
I’m not sure how to reconcile my desire to stimulate my baby’s brain development and my own. I think I’ll go see what’s on iTunes while I figure it out.
What about audiobooks?
ReplyDeleteOh man, I can't even tell you how much tv I watched in those first few months. To give you a hint, it included the entire collection of "Friends".. (10 seasons). I found out about all that research stuff, but I decided it didn't really matter until they were actually watching able to know that the tv was on. I realize this is probably not true, but that's what I told myself so that I could watch tv guilt-free. p.s. my mom was the EXACT same way with the tv!
ReplyDelete