"Kill Your TV": A Reflection On My Screen-Free Childhood

For the first few years of my life, I wasn’t allowed to watch TV. I’m not sure we even had a TV when I was really young (although we must have, right?), and once we did get one it was seriously restricted for us kids.

At first we were only allowed to watch Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street. Eventually we graduated to being able to watch some selected movies (Mary Poppins was a favorite) but we didn’t have cable at my mom’s house until I was in middle school and I don’t think we had it at my dad’s house until even later than that.

Obviously, this was before "The Golden Age of TV" that we’re in now (so. many. good. shows.) but still, my parents were hippies and were way more into imaginative play and dress-up than they were TV shows, so even if the shows had been as good as they are now, I’m not sure that would have changed things very much

It wasn’t until 5th grade--when my parents got divorced and my mom moved us to the suburbs of Atlanta--that I realized how much pop-culture I was missing out on by not watching TV. It was also then that I came to understand that I’d better learn the names of everyone on Full House and Family Matters if I wanted to fit in with the other kids (and while I was at it, I needed to buy some clothes from The Limited Too, as well!).

At school I would fake knowing what people were talking about when they mentioned storylines on these shows, and I would never dare to mention that we didn’t have cable at home, or that Nickeloden had always been a *very special* treat reserved for visits to my grandmother’s house (SNICK, anyone?). 

Similarly, I remember the excitement at eventually being able to join in + follow these conversations once I was finally allowed to watch the TV shows that were talked about at school (the most notable being Dawson’s Creek; swoon!); I also remember watching TRL after school on the days that I didn’t have some sports practice or after-school activity and feeling so cool because after years of being clueless, I was so fully immersed in what was happening in the teenage world... 

..But as we all know, times, they have a' changed and limiting screen-time is no longer just about how much TV you let your kids watch; the issue has become so much bigger and WAY more challenging for today’s parents than it was for mine. 

Yesterday, as I was watching Charlie Mae play with our remote control, I started thinking about how different her childhood will be from my own simply because of the prevalence of screens in her everyday life and in our world.

Even if I am able to successfully keep her away from screens in our home for the first two years or so of her life, my phone is still her most desired object (as it has been for months) and no matter where we go in the world, there are videos playing on almost every surface.

I know that this is something that all parents think about and I know that I'm not making any new observations about our world here, but when I compare Charlie Mae's reality to my own [somewhat unique] screen-less early years, I find them to be in stark contrast. I also didn’t quite realize how pervasive screens were until I had little eyes that I wanted to protect from those screens--and until I saw how quickly her eyes find them, how much she loves moving lights + sounds, how mesmerizing screens are to her little brain.

One of the first truly personalized gifts that I remember picking out for my dad was a bumper sticker for his car that said “Kill Your TV.” When I saw it in the store I knew it was perfect for him--he was one of the OG TV-haters, after all--and although he now has a big-screen, HBO, Netflix, Hulu, + surround sound, I think he still believes in the sentiment behind that bumper sticker, as do I.

I love a good show and watching TV is one of my favorite ways to relax, but it's common knowledge that we could all benefit from a little less screen-time and a little more outdoor time, or conversation, or reading time, or meditation. I'm finding more and more that the idea of “killing [or turning off/silencing] your TV [or phone, or iPad, or whatever screen you watch most]” is one of the only ways to do that.  

So, I don’t yet know exactly how we’re going to navigate Charlie Mae’s relationship with the multiple screens that are readily available in our home, at her daycare, and at family + friends’ houses, but I do know that I'm highly aware that this is an issue and I want to approach it mindfully. As we all should when it comes to our own screen-time on a daily basis.

Also, I  know that I want our daughter to have a childhood that is as full of screen-less downtime and creative play as mine was, but maybe with a *little more* understanding + awareness of pop-culture. And if a teenage Charlie Mae were to ever come across a bumper sticker that said “Kill your screen,” I’d want her to think it was a perfect gift for her mom, simply because of the sentiment behind it ;)