A Little Experiment

The theme for MOPS this year (yes, every year they have a theme) is Momology: The Art and Science of Mothering. It’s supposed to make us examine and appreciate the art and science of motherhood. How we, as mothers, artfully manage to do five things at once – like bandage a boo boo on child number one’s leg while encouraging child number two as they recite the alphabet, while also cooking dinner and keeping a mental grocery list of the items we notice are absent when perusing the pantry…all while keeping half an eye out the window, on the dog, who is outside in the yard sniffing something and is probably about two seconds from deciding to rub herself in it, thereby requiring a bath…again. We’re taking time to consider the scientific processes we undertake as mothers when we determine what works, what doesn’t and come up with new hypotheses for managing bed time or tantrums that we can test and evaluate.

All of this led me to try a little experiment of my own yesterday. For a while, I’ve been feeling bad about TV – about the amount of TV my children watch. And while I’m pretty sure there are a lot of kids who watch way more than my kids do, it troubled me. Now don’t get me wrong…my kids aren’t watching Looney Tunes – they’re watching PBS – educational TV that teaches them things, but still... My kids watch TV in the morning when they wake up. This gives me a chance to get ready, get lunches made, get them dressed one at a time, etc. Then we head out the door – usually by 8:45 a.m. we’re heading somewhere – school, church, the park. So that adds up to about 1 ½ hours of TV in the morning. Then there’s the afternoon. Daddy comes home at 6:15 so from the time they wake up from their naps (usually around 4) they play. Sometimes outside, sometimes inside, but if they’re inside, the TV is on. So that’s another 2 hours. 3 1/2 hours of TV a day sounds like an awful lot for a two and four year old, so I decided to do something about it.

On Monday, I declared a TV-free day. I was going to go for a week, but my WH advised me that maybe I should try a day first. I told OBB the night before that there wouldn’t be any TV the next day. He didn’t put up a fight at all. So Monday morning came and there was no TV. My children played in the playroom and were completely content. When I went upstairs to change the baby, OBB came with me and sat on his bed and talked to me. When there was a problem, I could hear what it was – instead of straining to hear over the TV who did what to whom. After naps, there was no TV. Instead, while I cooked dinner, the kids sat in the kitchen. They colored, they played with toys on the kitchen table, and they talked to me while I cooked. After dinner, OBB and my WH played a rousing game of hide and seek all over the house for the better part of an hour. It truly made for a very nice day, and I kept being struck by how much more peaceful things were. There wasn’t this noise all the time – things seemed calmer. And after one full day of not hearing news or getting any type of information from TV, I didn’t feel like I had missed anything. Being unplugged didn’t make me feel like I was out of touch with the world; instead I felt much more in touch with the people in my world. So I think it’s something I’ll try again. Maybe tomorrow.