TV Bad, Books Good

The most important thing we've learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, Never, NEVER let
Them near your television set-
Or better still, just don't install
The idiotic thing at all. In almost every house we've been,
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone's place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they're hypnotised by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,They don't climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink-
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
It rots the senses in the head!
It kills imagination dead!
It clogs and clutters up the mind!
It makes a child so dull and blind
He can no longer understand
A fantasy, A fairyland!
His brain becomes as soft as cheese!
His powers of thinking rust and freeze!
He cannot think- He only sees!
'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!'
We'll answer this by asking you,
'What used the darling ones to do?
'How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'
Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
They...used...to...read! They'd read and read,
and read and read, and then proceed
To read some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wonderous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants...
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How The Monkey Lost his Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There's Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know, Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away, And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something good to read.
And once they start- oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.

-An excerpt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by the magnificent Roald Dahl


We don't believe that tv is "evile like the devile", but anything in excess can't be healthy. We let our kids have a movie night once a week, and I don't have a problem with that. As quoted from the Berenstain Bears Too Much TV "I don't have anything against TV...What I'm against is the TV habit- sitting in front of it day after day like old stumps waiting for dry rot to set in." (by the way, Matt finds it very funny that I am quoting the Berenstain Bears...but 90% of my reading these days is from children's books, so what do you expect?)
Moving on... I am proud to announce that we have finally put the rabbit ears to rest in the attic! I am very excited about that because we don't let the kids watch tv, yet when they go to bed we watch a few shows from the 6 or so channels that we receive from our rabbit ears. We initially got the ears when Matt broke his ankle last year and was couch bound for 2 months... but somehow they just stuck around. It is so easy to get caught up in a show, but it is a such a waste of time and life. I found myself actually having conversations with people about tv shows and talking about the characters as if they were real people! How silly. We have lived the majority of our married life without tv, and the days without it were much more productive. So, it is time to stop being a hypocrite and put the rabbit ears out of sight...and start living up to the standards that we hold our kids to.