I try to do right by my kids. I get them exercise (albeit accompanied by frequent snack breaks), fresh air (albeit accompanied by the stink of low tide, especially redolent of rotting salmon the past few weeks) and a selection of educational toys (albeit mostly shunned in favor of the blinking, noise-making, seizure-inducing plastic junk that’s invaded our house like so much Japanese knot weed).
My 32/3-year-old daughter (she’s very precise about her age) has gone her entire solid food-eating life without having sampled so as much as a single McDonald’s french fry. She’s never even heard of a McNugget, and I aim to McKeep it that way. In a place like Juneau, where the downtown McDonald’s actually closed, I think I’ve got a shot. Avoiding Subway might be trickier.
Her 10-month-old brother, I take to the library. We fold laundry together and bake cornbread. He even accompanies me on guitar — we do a killer “space” jam.
But, sad to say, it’s not always a sickie shredfest over here. The problem I encounter, specifically on non-pre-school days: providing 12 hours worth of nourishing activities for two people whose own idea of fun involves destroying stuff. One has a 15-minute attention span (that’s 48 separate activities); the other pops everything into his mouth he can get his little pincer grasp on.
It’s especially challenging in inclement weather. Prime example: last Sunday’s desperation ran so deep, I packed up the kids and took them to synagogue — there was a ritual circumcision. Turned out to be the highlight of the afternoon, actually, and it came with bagels and lox. Too bad we can’t go to a bris more often.
Inevitably, however, I find myself scrambling. That’s when I turn to an old friend for help: television.
Of course, conventional early childhood wisdom says that any time in front of the screen is bad. Ever notice all the rationalizing that accompanies parents’ admission to letting their kids watch TV?
“Oh, we only do educational television,” goes one popular justification. Of course, one wonders what, exactly, constitutes “educational television,” considering most of what the Learning Channel airs concerns people with a hundred kids or oddities of medical science or both, such as Kate Gosselin.
“We stream through Netflix, so they aren’t exposed to advertising,” people will say. True, unless you count product placement as advertising. Advertising agencies certainly do.
“We don’t even own a television,” they brag, but then, it turns out, they’ve been Huluing “Thomas the Tank” — not to mention “Dexter” and “True Blood” for themselves — on their MacBooks all along. Not only does that count as watching TV; it counts as watching TV on a crappy little TV.
At least I own up to it: in our house, we watch TV. Not all the time, not after school, never when it’s just the baby and me — see all the explaining I feel compelled to do? But when we watch TV, we really watch it: 42-inch HDTV; premium cable; AppleTV (a little doodad that lets me stream shows, movies and Major League Baseball right on the big screen) and, once this year’s PFD direct deposit clears, the finest mid-grade home theater system Costco has to offer. Not only is TV the cheapest baby sitter around — it’s the only babysitter available at 6 a.m. on weekend mornings. At any price. Four episodes of “Dora the Explorer” add up to 92 extra minutes of sleep. I even taught my daughter how to work the remote herself. Who says TV isn’t educational? And of course, TV is a necessity on nights I’m left to put both kids to bed myself, when I plunk the girl down with some Elmo while I finesse the boy to sleep in their shared bedroom.
There are those who might ask: if I just need her to sit quietly on the couch while I tend to the baby, why can’t I give her some storybooks instead?
Forget, for a moment, that once upon a time, storybooks were television; literally, critics levied the same allegations at them: domain of the lazy, inappropriate for children. And what about the “books” they make straight from movies, like my daughter’s line-by-line synopsis of Disney’s “Cinderella,” or that “novel” I wrote a book report on in fifth grade entitled “Ghostbusters Starring Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, with Ernie Hudson as Winston Zedmore?” Are those really more stimulating than Sesame Street or Planet Earth?
That aside, the books-instead-of-TV idea works better in theory than practice, like removing the baby gate to teach your infant to be careful around stairs. If I don’t let my daughter watch TV, she won’t let me get her brother to sleep, which means she won’t get to sleep, either. Then how am I supposed watch TV?
Which brings me to my final point: kids want to do what they see their parents doing. And no matter how hard I try to hide this particular habit, when my daughter wakes up for a drink of water or because she wet the bed — maybe I should stop giving her so much water at night — where does she find me? On the couch, glued to food shows a man of my girth has no business watching, programs with titles like “Deep Fried Paradise” or “The Best Thing I Ever Ate.”
Sometimes she comes home from swimming lessons to find me flipping between marathons of “How It’s Made” on the Discovery Channel and “Destroyed in Seconds” on Discovery Science. Just for contrast.
Plus, look at all the TV I, myself, watched as a kid. Not only did I turn out fine, but I can tell you who played Alex P. Keaton’s alcoholic uncle on “Family Ties” (Tom Hanks) and what college ensemble “Simpsons” character Snake attended (Middlebury) without having to reference the Internet. Admit it, you’re impressed.
• “Slack Tide” appears every other Sunday in Neighbors. Geoff Kirsch’s first book-length humor piece “Run For Your Life! Doomsday 2012!” is now out in stores. Visit www.geoffkirsch.com for links to online sellers; it should also be available at Hearthside Books.
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