what other adults think

[wish]

So we got rid of cable about three weeks ago. We do still have the dvd player and do get movies from the library, but overall we have cut waaaaay back. I'm really liking it and don't miss it nearly as much as I thought I would.

But the funniest thing is the reactions I get from other adults when I tell them. You would think we were abusing our children! I have gotten comments like "those poor kids" or "what do they do?". We had a family watching the girls who asked what they should do with them since we don't have tv. My dad even said "I didn't know you really got rid of tv, I thought you still had basic cable".

I have to admit, a lot more gets done around our house. No more just sitting down "for a sec" to catch part of a show. We listen to music over the computer and NPR and Echos at bedtime. I'm actually finding time to read!

[homefrontgirl]

Good for you!

We have cut all tv service recently too. My mom is visiting now and she's addicted to HGTV. I told her before she came to bring a book because we had no tv. We're all having a great time and she doesn't even miss it. It's funny what we think we need sometimes, but in reality those things aren't necessary. Maybe she'll get rid of Directv when she goes back home? One can always hope!

[blizzard_babe]

Many of my friends don't have cable/satellite (though everyone I know watches DVDs and some watch broadcast TV), so I don't get the deprivation line a lot. It's clear that my kid is neither deprived nor bored, so that question/comment/concern kind of takes care of itself.

[SubliminalDarkness]

I really like not having it! A lot of other adults now invite us to their house because they think surely we must be desperate to watch things. And I'm sort of curious to know what's going on with some of them, but.... not really.

Some people, a lot actually, ask if we did it to save money. And that was really not at all a major part of the decision.

[Sol_y_Paz]

We don't know of anyone else that doesn't have any channels available with the TV. I feel like our house is a bit primitive to guests. But it works for us.

[SaoirseC]

We've been TV free for almost a year (though we have Netflix, a DVD player on my laptop, and streaming video). It is sort of funny that people assume kids will be bored without TV, or that it's somehow wrong for kids to be bored! My kids were significantly more bored when they had access to the TV. They would watch for hours, then whine about being bored and expect me to entertain them! Now they play for hours. How can that be "suffering"?

[EdnaMarie]

We have a TV and no official TV limit, but it's in the one room I don't clean daily because it's "reserved" for guests. So we hardly ever watch it. My daughter has three DVDs but I have to be there when she's watching them as they're on my computer. But we are like... freaks.

Suffering without TV? Haven't they got any toys?

[rightkindofme]

We haven't had a tv set in years. When we owned a tv set it was out in the shed for many years before that. Sometimes people will ask me what we do instead, but mostly folks have gotten over it. We occasionally watch movies on laptops, although these days I have a netbook (tiny screen) and every other computer is linux and I can't stream from netflix on those. So uhm... even that is dropping radically.

When I'm pregnant I watch ~2 movies a month. When I'm not pregnant we watch 4-6 movies a year. My husband thinks that more than 3 movies a year is a waste of time.

What does our kid do? Play!