And another thing...

In an altogether unrelated community, the old TV debate is going through the motions again. I, personally, think that TV can be watched intelligently, even by children, with the proper supervision. To say that it's harming my children because they watch any TV at all seems a bit extreme to me. Yeah, you read that right. Some things are extreme even to me.

Sure I think TV can be a colossal time suck in many cases. Reality TV being one. And yes, I do watch things that aren't entirely educational. My kids do too, but not that much. I think advertising and marketing are still the root of all evil in our overly consumeristic society. I get all the arguments for killing the TV completely. I do. But I will be brutally honest and say that I don't want my kids to be total and complete social pariahs. We make a LOT of choices that are out of the mainstream that already have my kids left of center, in the fringes, so any more choices we make have to be heavily weighed. Not that I'm desperately wanting them to "fit in" or become jocks or cheerleaders or whatever. I most definitely do not. I want them to find their own niches to fit in TO. At the same time, I don't want to make rash decisions just to out-crunch the next family. You use cloth diapers? Well, WE use elimination communication. You're vegetarian, well, WE'RE vegan. You get the picture. And yes, I seem to know online moms like this.

So what we choose to do is use the TV rather than demonize it. Take last night for example, my two oldest kids and I sat and watched Origins, the Nova special about the origins of the universe. I was amazed that they were really very interested in it, they watched the whole thing! And I, for one, DO learn things from TV. From the Food Network, to the Discovery Channel and PBS, there are lots of new things to learn right at my fingertips. And yes, my kids watch Teen Titans and The Fairly Odd Parents, too. They like to be entertained as well! So while we don't get all our edumacatin' from the telly, we do use it to our advantage. I refuse to buy into the black and white that TV is all bad. I don't think anything is all bad or all good, black and white. Lots of things are gray, and therein lies the beauty.