TV Failure
Credit: Mykl Roventine, https://www.flickr.com/photos/myklroventine/1272199239/
In the spirit of issue 35, [Fall 2014, After Failure] I thought I’d share my latest failure.
My husband and I decided this summer would be the summer of no TV. I had visions of all the things I’d get done because I was no longer watching TV. Sewing, gardening, reading, baking, I was going to be so productive. I think this is where I first went wrong.
Our 8-year-old daughter wasn’t sure this was a very good idea. She really enjoys our weekly movie night, which probably has more to do with popcorn and snuggling on the couch than the actual TV watching. We conceded we would still have movie night, but that was it. Then our daughter pointed out that she often watched cartoons on Saturday mornings if she woke up early and let the rest of us sleep in. We couldn’t argue that point and we gave in again, allowing her two episodes of cartoons on Saturday mornings.
We cancelled our cable. It took a while to get the person who answered our call to understand that no, we didn’t want better deal with more channels, and no, we weren’t switching to a rival cable provider, we just didn’t want cable any more. With the cable cancelled my husband quickly built an antenna so we could pick up a few channels in HD over the air, with the thought that CBC News didn’t really count as TV. We also kept our Netflix so we could watch those weekly movies and Saturday morning cartoons.
The summer flew by and, while we didn’t watch any TV during the week, the weekends involved more TV than I would have liked.
My biggest disappointment is the lack of things I feel I accomplished. While I read a lot of books little else got checked off my list. So I view the summer as a failure. My husband views it as a success because it encouraged us to cancel the cable and now that it’s fall we have no plans of reconnecting it. My daughter feels like she barely watched any TV, and spent most of the summer doing fun things outside.
I think it boils down to the fact that we didn’t really watch that much TV to begin with. I didn’t suddenly have three to five extra hours of time per day to spend on more creative pursuits. It was more like 30 minutes to one hour, which goes by quite quickly when you’re reading a book.
While I feel I failed I’m not discouraged. Next summer instead of cutting things out I plan on putting things in. Filling in my time with more creative pursuits, more back yard BBQs with friends, more reading aloud with my kids, more bike rides to the wading pool.
Elisabeth Franz-Warkentin is the Associate Publisher of Geez magazine.
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