TV Under the Tree?

By Eugenie Allen

1 We don't care that two-thirds of 8-to-18-year-olds and one-third of 2-to-7-year-olds already have TVs in their bedroom, as the Kaiser Family Foundation reported last year. We just assume their parents have tuned out all the research suggesting that children and television shouldn't be left alone together. Or maybe they need a spot for the 19-in. set displaced by that new home-theater system. Whatever the rationale, we're not buying it. Our three have-nots will have to make do with the Panasonic in the den.

2 Even with limited TV exposure, our preschooler already knows the jingles for this season's hottest gifts. If he had a TV in his room, says the National Institute on Media and the Family, he'd spend an additional 5.5 hours a week watching it. That's about 45 minutes a day that he could be looking at books, playing with his sisters or singing toy commercials.

3 My husband and I don't have a TV in our bedroom; why should our kids? Bedrooms are for quiet activities like reading, daydreaming or sleeping--and for storage of mounds of clean laundry.

4 As long as we're talking real estate, if our children's rooms become entertainment centers, where will we send the little darlings when they misbehave?

5 Someone has to listen to all those anti-TV activists; it may as well be me. A typical comment from Joan Anderson, author of Getting Unplugged and Breaking the TV Habit: "TV is not a member of the family; it's a stranger. Would you let a stranger into your child's bedroom?" Amen.

6 Arguing about what to watch strengthens sibling relationships, at least in the long haul. (Note to Kimberly and Charles: I forgive you for all those episodes of Fantasy Island.) Without conflict and hard-won resolution, our kids might be quieter, but they wouldn't be any closer. Besides, as my mother used to say, "You can always see it in reruns."

7 We don't have enough family time as it is. On those rare occasions when we sit down together to watch Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, we need everyone huddled around the same electronic hearth, not slotted into lonely outposts upstairs, watching God knows what.

8 We're tired! If we want to preside over more than one screen, we'll open a multiplex. In one week, we had to ban Eminem from our home, coach our 8-year-old through the scary parts of The Wizard of Oz and trick the 3-year-old into believing that our unplugged TV was broken.

9 Don't talk to me about the V chip. It's no substitute for parental supervision, and yet, according to a 1999 study by the National Institute on Media and the Family, only 58% of parents have rules about TV viewing, while 81% are concerned about the amount of violence their children see in movies and on TV. What's wrong with this picture?

10 Sure, we've been known to use Dumbo as a sedative, but most nights ours are the last voices our children hear before they sleep. An acquaintance once boasted that her three kids, including a toddler, put themselves to bed. All she had to do was turn out the lights and lower the volume on each child's TV. That sad image is enough to sustain me until our youngest is an adult, when Santa can do as he pleases.

For more on kids and television, visit childrennow.org Questions for Eugenie? E-mail her at [email protected]