I Was Raised By a TV (And I’m Just Fine)
By: Tara Lyn Mallick
Tags: Mental Health, Media, Parenting, Coronavirus, Television

I have often bragged about the fact that all I did growing up was watch TV. Sorry Mom (R.I.P.) and Dad, but it’s true.

When I think of my childhood I think of these things: sleepovers, going rollerskating with my dad, running loose in the summertime with the neighborhood kids and TV. Lots of TV.

I remember using a tape recorder to audiotape Penny’s voice when she appeared on Good Times (don’t ask). I remember being excited when we had HBO that we weren’t paying for (thanks, cable company!).

I remember watching every American Music Awards that ever aired. I loved watching Cops and SNL on Saturday nights. Little House on the Prairie played on the little TV while we ate dinner. MTV was huge.

When I got my first job, the first thing I saved up for was a television. Initially, I had a tiny, 5-inch screen TV with an antenna that I had to tune in constantly. I watched The Simpsons, 21 Jump Street and Married With Children.

I finally graduated to a 12" colored TV and I watched Entertainment Tonight on it every evening after dinner. I remember when E.T. covered Michael Landon’s death and I was crushed that Pa Ingalls was gone (the TV one, anyway).

There was no shame in TV. It was like a member of our family that never stopped talking. I cannot think of a time when I walked into the house and the TV wasn’t on. Our house was like 800 square feet and we owned at least four televisions. If you were sitting in the living room, you could hear the TV playing in the kitchen.

To this day, I can’t stand the sound of more than one TV playing at a time (turn it down, already!).

Fast forward to now: I’m 44, married, am a social worker, and have an 8-year-old son. I would say that I’m pretty successful. We have a comfortable life, I’m not an idiot and our son is funny and inquisitive. He is thoughtful, reads at a 5th-grade level, is good at math, and loves basketball. We travel a lot, we visit the library and spend time with friends. We spend a lot of time outside.

One of my favorite memories of him was watching two earthworms “sniffing” around on the ground when he was little. I still have a leaf that he gave me attached to my fridge with a magnet.

What else do we do? Watch a lot of TV.

Our son, Eliot, has watched YouTube videos since he was 2. He loved videos of firetrucks pulling out of fire stations and would watch them on repeat (head’s up, the sounds of blaring sirens gets OLD).

We had piles of DVDs about heavy machinery and semis and dump trucks. We forced him to watch movies, hoping we could find his favorite one that we could watch over and over (The Lorax for the win!).

He still watches YouTube and movies and America’s Funniest Home Videos (still the funniest show on TV).

As I hinted at before, he is not a sloth. He’s not melting into the couch nor have his brains turned to mush. Furthermore, he has not gone blind from staring at a screen. He has friends and is not a weirdo who is afraid to leave the basement.

Yes, he needs to work on his writing and gets easily frustrated, but we’re working on that.

In fact, I would propose that he has learned a lot from TV, way more than I ever did. Maybe I’m using the term loosely, but he became an expert on Egypt and could tell you anything you wanted to know about the Sphinx of Giza. He knew its dimensions, how corrosion occurred to create the base of the structure, and the debate about which king had it built and when.

He became obsessed with the Titanic disaster. He could tell you about the people aboard the ship, conspiracy theories surrounding the sinking, and how “the ship wasn’t as unsinkable as everyone thought.” The Titanic was such a huge part of his life that we almost had a Titanic-themed birthday party (pin the iceberg on the ship!).

His new love is basketball. He watches clips of players, old and new, and can give you any stat you want. Basketball documentaries are always on his radar and we have seen the Allen Iverson doc at least three times. He has learned moves that he likes to practice on the court across the street. His bedroom wall is full of his recreations of the jerseys that belonged to the Kobes and Kareems of history. They are meticulously drawn, colored, and hung with care.

Does he watch crap? Of course. He likes to watch videos of dudes yelling and playing video games. He used to incessantly watch videos of kids opening Hot Wheels sets and Pokemon cards. The droning voices of guys blathering on about basketball cards get to be beyond annoying.

Anything he watches is on the living room TV, so we know if it needs to be turned off (our house is also the size of a shoebox).

Times are tough. Life is tough. I am constantly being bombarded with Facebook posts and articles about how to homeschool or how to create schedules for your kids or 50 FUN CHEMISTRY ACTIVITIES TO BORE EVERYONE TO DEATH AND RUIN YOUR KITCHEN.

You guys, this is too much. Am I telling you to throw out your books? Deflate the tires on your bike? Stop doing art projects or making volcanoes on your dining room table?

Of course not!

I just wanted to say that it is okay to take a break. It is okay to NOT be shamed into creating a full schedule of activities. It’s okay to NOT spend 100% of your time entertaining your kid. You CAN let the TV entertain them and teach them a few things.

I can easily argue that Eliot has gained much more from the TV than he has lost. He knows where to go if he wants to learn something new.

We monitor what he watches, but he has learned to know what is appropriate and what is not. (Before anyone yells at me, we realize that TV and media is much more nefarious than it used to be, but we use common sense.)

And, as I mentioned, TV is balanced with lots of other things. There is time for all of the serious things AND everyone deserves a break, including your kid. Give yourself a break. Give your kid a break.

Go watch TV.