On the average summer day when I was a kid, you would find my
brothers and I stretched out in front of the TV in our living room, watching
show after show, barely registering anything but the flickering magic screen bringing
images of an animated race of small blue people, a blended family of three
girls and three boys, or one of several movies on laserdisc that we watched on
a loop until my mother screamed that we were rotting our brains and to
get outside.
One summer ended with my parents deciding that we were only
allowed to watch two hours of television per day, a terrible punishment to me
back then, a couch potato with a moderate TV addiction. The punishment only lasted a week or two, but
it was long enough for the new school year to start and for us to replace our
TV watching with other, more industrious activities.
We watched whatever was on during the summer: new cartoons, repeats
of cartoons that my parents remembered as kids, MTV, old sitcoms in black and
white, TV movies, soap operas, talk shows, old box office movies, the news. We watched things over and over again until
we memorized the dialogue. We saw so
many commercials that we sang the jingles when we saw the products at the
store.
I grew up normally, that moderate TV addiction harming me not
so much. As a matter of fact, I rarely
watch any TV at all these days, and I don’t feel as if I’m missing
anything. Maybe I got all the TV I
needed in life during those childhood summers.
Those summer days may have been wasted, but the memories of being
sprawled out on the floor and watching the tube day after summer day are
good ones. The freedom to relax and not
worry about wasted or unproductive time was fully ours, and it vanished as fast
as those summer months did when school started.
It vanished more quickly as I got older and had less free time to waste.
As this summer ends and I am preparing for another school
year, I see my kids in their sprawled-out positions on the floor, watching the
same cartoons about sea creatures and shows about performing arts high
school friends and have to stop myself from nagging at them to turn off the TV
and do something productive today.
So what if they’ve watched these same programs so many times
that even I can recite the dialogue? This
memory just might be one that defines their happy summers, and I’m not going to
spoil THAT.
*******
we were punished fot watching tv? don't remember that. at all.
ReplyDelete-tyler
Well, I was. You probably weren't because mom loves you more.
DeleteThanks...I feel better/less guilty now. I'll say, "Andrea said it's okay!!" Perfect...just made my day!! :)
ReplyDeleteJustifications and rationalizations are my specialties!
DeleteI watched a lot of TV too, and still do. As an introverted kid, it was my little escape (or my big escape since I watched so much of it).
ReplyDeleteI watched TV when I was a kid because I loved it. I don't watch as much TV now not because I fell out of love with it, but because someone is always either a) hogging the TV I want, or b) too young to watch with me or c) breathing too loud.
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