This is not a *Sanctimommy post, I promise. But this is something that has amazed Jeremy and me over the last few months, and I think it's interesting how kids' brains work.
Before we moved to Utah, my kids didn't watch TV at all. Sometimes Jeremy would watch a movie on Netflix with Grace, but that was at most once a month. We had only basic cable (part of Internet package), and it was all the stupid shows that everyone hates. When I was first nursing Emmy, I tried turning on the TV to keep Grace entertained, but the shows were so mind-numbingly drab and boring that I couldn't handle it. I preferred a misbehaving child.
So, we moved out here, and our apartment came with satellite TV. This was good because they both went through phases where the only way I could imagine not duct taping them to the walls of their room all day was to plop them in front of the TV so I could cook, or clean, or cry in a locked bathroom. They were mostly good kids, but for a while, their difficult phases seemed to line up often in such a way that it just deepened the emotional erosion that one kid's hours of daily whining accomplishes. So, TV was a good thing. For a while.
When Grace started waking up at what-is-wrong-with-you in the morning for no known reason (and with no known fix), showing her how to operate the TV was the only way I could cope without lapsing into sleep-deprived catatonia/psychosis.
And then eventually it got so that every day, they got half an hour to an hour of TV after naptime.
And they got brattier and brattier. Since we moved here, it's been pretty clear that my kids don't handle TV very well, but that it was an almost-necessary evil (there needs to be a word for something that is more than a want, but less than a need). So we got it cut down to one show after naptime, and then once every other day or so. It made a difference, but not a huge one. They were still whiny a lot. This is, of course, to be expected of a 2- and 3-year old, but it's not the most lovely thing to experience it in stereo.
Then we moved again. There is no cable here. There is no satellite. There is the occasional Netflix show or movie (once a week at most; usually more like once a month). We just completely cut off TV when we moved. It was not pretty at first. They were bored. They were fighting. They were whining. They were sad. They were tired. They were bored. And then... all that stopped. They still get bored and fight and whine and get sad and tired. But all those things are speed bumps in the day; they are not the day entire.
And the best part is the imaginary play. The things they come up with to play together are amazing. Jeremy and I eavesdrop and shake with laughter at their conversations. Grace's imitation of me is spot-on. Their misconceptions of how the world works are wildly entertaining ("Doctor, my friend's phone is broken, so I'm calling you to ask you to come to her house." "I can't. I'm sick today." "UGH. EMMY. Doctors don't get sick [you idiot]!").
I'm sure some of this just has to do with growing up, but I have to say that losing TV was one of the better things that happened to us. It has, for the most part, made my life easier. I can get a lot done while they play together, and now there's no withdrawal period with extra snottiness. Don't misunderstand, they are still VERY snotty sometimes. They are often rude and entitled and disrespectful, but getting rid of the TV habit has removed the extra.
*Sanctimommy: One who feels that optional (or not-ideal, yet ultimately harmless) childrearing choices are, in fact, moral choices; if you fail to do what she does, you are inferior.
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