Why My Television Rocks

Well, it's taking me some time but I've recovered from our days without television.

We did it. We turned the TV off. We told the kids that we were having a few days of no TV. Remarkably, they didn't pester us endlessly to turn it back on. They did, however, increase their request for DS time (Nintendo handheld) and computer game time. We tried to steer them away, keep them busy, and spend more time outside. We did feel the need to make more trips out with them to fill some time. Our kids don't exactly have a long attention span for playing on their own, and getting anything done when their constantly demanding your attention is impossible. But overall, they did well and we had many more creative Lego ships with heavy fire power by the end of that week.

My husband loved no TV time. Lately he's found that the TV gives him a headache, and he'd much prefer to listen to music and read on the couch at night. I, on the other hand, simply replaced my nighttime television watching with Facebook and computer games...and maybe a little Super Mario Bros. on my son's DS. So I'm fairly sure I did not honor the ideals behind that particular part of my No Impact Week. No excuses here, either. I have no guilt about the television, and I'll tell you why. Unless you're not interested, in which case I'd stop reading if I were you, cuz that's pretty much all I have left to talk about.

For my husband, he gets to go to work in the morning, and leave his work to come home in the evening. That isn't to say that once he walks out the door all thoughts of work are out of his mind, far from it, but once his day is done the work he has left for the next day is not staring at him from every direction, every corner, every Cheerio crunched under his foot.

For me, once the kids are in bed and my time is my own, there's still piles of laundry on the chair in the corner of the living room, chunks of crackers, cereal and lately, pomegranates sticking to the bottom of my sock in the dining room, Legos and babydolls and Candyland cards on the carpet in front of my sofa blocking my ability to open the recliner, dishes on the counter and filling the sink in the kitchen, and a host of other tasks awaiting my attention. But I keep my sanity by ignoring all that come 8:00. Truly, if it hasn't been attended to by then, it ain't gonna happen today!

Every mom who reads this knows how important this attitude is. And every mom reading this knows how the stress of "resting" with all of that surrounding you is like trying to sleep while someone shines a flashlight in your face. All that stuff is staring at me. Eating at me. Taunting me. It's egging me on to get up and take care of it, allowing myself a moment of triumph when, for just one night, for 12 short hours, it could all be gone and done...but it always comes back. The triumph is so brief. The clean just never lasts. And the precious evening hours that could have been spent sitting and recouping can never be recovered. So, I choose to ignore it. I pull the sheet up tight over my head. I turn on the television, open the computer, or, if I feel like it, a book, and I tune out the mess and tune in to whatever the heck I want on the TV. And I enjoy it! Even if it's one of my many silly, pointless, brain-cell-sucking reality shows, it's better then letting my unfinished work bury me.

As I've said before, this lowering of my family's impact on the planet and efforts to consume locally, it's only going to work if it doesn't cut into our happiness or lower our quality of life. I've added steps to my day (more work and effort) in order to reuse, reduce, and recycle; it's worth it, and it makes me happier. I've spent way more money by shopping as local and organic as possible; it's worth it, and it makes me happier. But turning off the television? For me, it's just not worth it. Maybe I'll change my mind some day. Maybe it works for you. But that's the beauty of this whole thing, everyone can make the changes that work best for them, and if we truly make as many changes as we can handle, the earth still wins!