We are Americans
living in Israel, formerly in a rural community, now in a suburban.
My husband is a computer programmer, I teach Jewish studies part time
and we have a four-year-old daughter and a two-year-old son. The absence
of a television has had such a profound, positive effect our family
in so many ways, it's difficult to know where to start. The first, most
obvious, I think, is that the family spends our free time together,
interacting with each other. The kids play a lot with each other, the
adults spend those few precious moments before we collapse at the end
of the day talking to each other, the adults play with the kids. We're
not all in our own separate orbit. (This is not to imply that we don't
spend time by ourselves too! More on that later. The point is that the
family as a whole is strong and cohesive.)
As for me, I find that the longer I live without television, the sharper
my perceptive skills become in general. I understand things more deeply,
I'm able to sniff out nonsense more easily. I'm less susceptible to
emotional arguments and am more on the lookout for content.
Life without TV has also been very good for the marriage, if I can get
a little personal, because neither my husband nor I are constantly bombarded
with unrealistic fantasies about what relationships are like. This allows
us to meet normal challenges without having to fight reality, and also
lets us enjoy life's true pleasures without wondering why they aren't
as good as life on TV! These principles are true for many aspects of
the relationship, if you get my drift.
Another part of the picture is just the issue of wasted time. We don't
really do it so much. Time needed for relaxing is spent for relaxing,
and then we're on to the next thing. Both the adults spend a good amount
of time reading.
As for the kids: my four-year-old used the work Pokemon today for the
first time. I asked her what it is, she said a game. She has NO IDEA.
They aren't homogenized, junior consumers, overstimulated to think that
they NEED every Disney product, etc. They have excellent attention spans,
a ton of intellectual curiosity, patience in working on projects, and
I think that they're maybe better able to actualize their individuality.
TV is so powerful a socializer, that when you don't have it, maybe people
are better able to be different from one another. I taught my daughter
the English alphabet, and she is more or less teaching herself the Hebrew
alphabet. They're musical, too, and LOVE being read to. Of course all
kids have many of these qualities, but I would like to suggest that
that is kids' natural state, and TV squashes it.
What to they do with their time? Play with Legos, do art projects, play
outside in the dirt, take apart the living room, experiment with objects,
puzzles, tricycles. They entertain themselves quite nicely, every so
often I bring home a new toy. This could be because we never had a TV,
so they didn't need to go through the major adjustment of learning HOW
to entertain themselves. (Bruno Bettelheim writes beautifully of the
importance of children's fantasy world, and how too much TV robs them
of the ability to develop it, because it's all handed to them.) I
don't find it's a problem, they have no expectation of being entertained.
Time to myself, and for my husband? We create it, and protect it. We'll
support each other in taking some. I'd guess we're probably the same
in that area as most families with small kids.
As far as community—we are blessed in the fact that many, many
families in Israel don't have televisions, partly for the reasons I
listed above, and also because the overt sexuality that is so pervasive
on TV is considered destructive for both children and adults. When we
visit family with TV, I let the kids watch it, with strict guidelines.
This has been successful in immunization, in the sense that hopefully
they won't have the resentment of someone who feels they've been deprived,
or the overblown curiosity of someone wanting the "forbidden."
My advice to anyone considering their relationship to their TV—try
life without it! See what happens! You do have to give everyone a chance
to adjust, and you have to be aware that many of the changes that will
happen are quite subtle and therefore take time to manifest. Lots of
luck!
Rachel
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