on being a TV Nazi

It's true. I am a TV Nazi.
I always told myself I wouldn't be... mainly because I did not want to be like my own mom and dad.

In my house growing up, we always had only one TV. (shocking!) There were no TV's in kids' bedrooms, there was no cable, and my parents carefully selected the shows and movies we watched. They were always suitable for the entire family.

Yes, I grew up on PBS. I found This Old House and Wild America to be very entertaining as a child. This was pretty much all we were allowed to watch. Well, we did watch Little House on the Prairie sometimes too. I am learning that it is pretty much inevitable that I will be a lot like my parents, and the truth is that they really are amazing people, so I don't mind being like them.

As D. and I have talked and thought about the habits we have in our home on a day-to-day basis, we have thought about some of the following things:

We want to teach our kids to live into God's story. This story is living, alive, and active. Watching TV can be a passive activity. It doesn't engage our minds and our creativity in the same way that having conversations, reading books, playing outside, making crafts together, and really just living together do.

a boy engaging in active play

Having the TV on can be a way to avoid relationships rather than to practice living into healthy and intimate relationships. When the TV is on, there is always background noise, there is always something else or someone else entering into our lives at home. Whatever is on TV has a way of dominating the conversation and dictating what goes on in the room.

Relationships are more valuable than tasks. Sometimes when I have a lot of tasks or chores to get done around the house, it would be so much easier to turn on the TV so the boys would not try to "help" me sweep the floor or clean the kitchen. Or so that they would not argue as they play together, causing me to have to intervene. But the work of parenting is about much more than keeping a house clean or keeping kids fed--it is about cultivating healthy and intimate relationships with our children. This work is valuable whether we have something tangible to show for it at the end of the day or not.

laying by the open window and feeling the cool breeze first thing in the morning

There are other habits and practices that can invade our lives and have the same impact as watching TV--the internet and the mobile phone, for example. We don't have it all figured out, and we make a lot of mistakes, but we are doing our best to be intentional as we practice living into God's story.