Old Lady Sucks It up

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Part two of the old lady lament goes like this:  old lady figures out that the TV has an off button.  I have this feeling you are thinking I might have lost it, as in my mind, but I was raised with TV.  It was like the my third sibling.  My nice sibling that didn’t give nougies and 500 chicken pecks.  It welcomed, it soothed, it allowed you to enter into a world that was so much better than your own. Okay, my own.  Maybe your world was better than TV.  So what I am saying is that old habits die hard, or don’t really die at all.  I come home from work and turn on the TV.  No one is watching it, it is just noise, but I still welcome that noise.  Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond reruns are familiar.  Maybe it’s the these people’s problems are way worse than mine factor or just the escape that makes TV so intriguing, but here I am watching stupid shows like The Workout and finding myself seriously wondering if Peeler will get fired or not.  And then will he still be on the show or what?  And eventually this logical side of my brain, or maybe it’s just the jerk side, says, you are so lame right now.  I have gone through phases during which I didn’t have cable, but those were sad, depressing times.  Okay, I am just kidding.  The fact is, while I am watching TV, I think it’s idiotic, and I am kind-of a grown up.  So what kind of influence is this on Tommy?  We are the boss of him still, at least we are still holding on to that illusion.  I already know that I don’t want to ever let him have a TV or computer in his room, because I think I might never see him until he emerges as an 18-year old off to college, or worse, a pot-smoking 35-year old.  

 

So now he gets music when we come home from school.  And he has good taste:  he likes Jack Johnson, Steve Miller Band, the Juno Soundtrack, Christine Kane, Kenny Chesney.  The only music we were raised with was Helen Reddy, the Carpenters, and the Johnny Mathis Christmas album – the one with Percy Faith and his Orchestra, you know it.  And I don’t know if I was well-rounded musically if I only know the words to I am Woman Hear me Roar, Superstar and Sleigh Ride.  All of those Lionel Ritchie songs we sang in choir didn’t really add much either.  

 

Anyway, I think cutting out the TV allows your mind to create it’s own thoughts, not just live someone else’s.  And I think music just makes life better.  So we are backing off of the squawk box, and amazingly Tommy does not miss Arthur or Maya and Miguel.  He only wants me to “play song number 1 again Mommy.”  Song number one, by the way, is All I Want is You by Barry Louis Polisar from the Juno soundtrack.  This kid has great taste in music already. 

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Filed under Musings, Parenting, Tommy