My Kid Watches TV

My kid watches TV.  I can’t be in the minority.  I was planning to be the mom that made organic baby food, spent the days doing art projects and teaching my child Mandarin.  She would only play with wooden toys  and have an interest in classical music. Then I actually had a child.  I realized the only Mandarin  I was familiar with were the  highly sweetened canned segments of oranges that I dump into a bowl for my daughter. 

 I was never all that against TV, until my pediatrician, Parents magazine, and the Bitchtastic Brigade of Smug Mommies  (BBSM)  pointed out the damage that is being done from letting my kid watch Little Bill while I sneak in a shower.  So when my pediatrician asked me if my child watches television after already telling me that she shouldn’t, I did what probably most of her patients do.  I came clean and admitted the error of my ways. 

 Just kidding. 

 I lied.  

I panicked, it  is as if someone said, If your child eats strawberries, They are going to hell and you are a horrible monster of a mother for letting her eat them. Apparently you haven’t read the latest research that states that strawberries are filled with demon seeds and you and your family will all die a painful fiery death and rot on the bowels of hell for all eternity..  

“You don’t let your child eat strawberries do you?” 

Uh…um…of course not.

So yes, my child watches TV and yes, I have lied about it.  It’s not like I sit her in front of Maury Povich with a Mountain dew and a bag of Cheetos while I play online poker…or update my blog.  She usually watches something vaguely educational while I make dinner or check my email or take a shower or update my Facebook status.  She doesn’t bug me for the newest crappy sparkle toy or some diabetic coma cereal.  She rarely sees television commercials because Netflix streaming and Amazon Prime allow us to watch episodes of her favorite shows without being bombarded by ads for Pillow Pets and Gogurt.

She has mastered the remote control with only few problems thus far.  She wanted to turn on Strawberry Shortcake and I returned to the living room to find her watching Comedy Central’s Roast of David Hasselhoff.   No harm was done, though someday Lisa Lampanelli and Seth MacFarlane may come up in therapy.  

I’m not saying that TV is a good substitute for playing or socializing, and I certainly wouldn’t let her watch as much TV as I consumed as a child.  As a six year old I knew every episode of The Carol Burnett show by heart and couId probably give you a pretty good summary of each episode of Barney Miller, All in the Family or Laverne and Shirley.  Little House on the Prairie was my home away from home.  I spent so much time with the Ingalls family, they probably could have filed for custody.  

But I digress, I am just here to admit that I let my kid watch TV, I’ve lied about it, and she accidentally watched the David Hasselhoff roast. Does that make me a bad mother?  Probably not.   I mean, If my kid doesn’t watch any TV, how is she ever going to win trivia contests?  How is she going to make clever pop culture references?! How am I ever gonna get a shower?!