My long and winding thoughts on TV
Deb Lewis
I love TV.
I really liked Sesame street and Reading Rainbow when Dylan was little
but Dylan wasn't interested in them. When he was three or so he finally
told me he really thought Sesame Street was just for babies. I still
watched it and sometimes if I'm flipping through the channels and come
across Sesame Street I watch even now. <g>
Though I had the TV on a lot in the days when he was little he didn't
watch. It was his choice, he just wasn't interested. But when he was
nearly four and had a fast growing love of dinosaurs TNT came out with
"Monster Vision" and Dylan discovered Godzilla! Ah. He was in heaven.
Godzilla movies lead to other monster movies. By the time he was six or
so he'd seen every terrible old Japanese and Korean monster movie we
could lay our hands on.
He also watched Lost in Space, on the Sci-fi channel and old episodes of
Star Trek. He watched Next Generation and Deep Space Nine and Voyager
for the one season we were able to get it.
Science fiction lead to old horror movies and he started a collection of
Werewolf and Vampire and Mummy videos. He loved horror and read his
first Stephen King stories when he was seven or eight.
I had more than one talk with our librarian and the lady at the video
store about what he was "allowed" to check out. <g>
He has always been free to choose what he wanted to watch and *if* he
wanted to watch and I've never known him to watch something just because
it was on. He leaves the room if someone is watching something he's not
interested in. He has rented movies and turned them off when they
weren't what he thought they were. He absolutely knows what he wants to
see and what he doesn't.
There was a time when he was little that he believed every advertisement
he saw on TV. We used to joke that if he ever found the shopping channel
we'd have to hide the credit cards. <g> He would excitedly tell us we
needed the Downey Ball or some gizmo or fantastic cleaner. During the
time he was discovering advertising we talked about the products. Why we
did or didn't need them. We did try some things that were advertised and
found them not to be as appealing as they'd been portrayed in the ads.
Some things we liked a lot but some really were a waste of money.
He saw the Hot Wheels Volcano Blowout race track set advertised on TV.
He wanted one so badly and we found out they were over fifty dollars. We
saved for it and he put away some of his own money until he had enough
and we drove the eighty something miles to the store and he brought it
home. It broke within the first few days. The little pegs that held the
volcano together snapped off and the track and volcano would come apart
every time a car went through. It was heartbreaking. But we wrote our
complaint to the company and though it took quite a long time he was
satisfied with the way they resolved the issue.
His discovery of and understanding of advertising came about really
naturally through exposure and experience. The same way he learned to
tie his shoes and read, he learned about advertising. Not in some
vacuum of TV land but in his home, with his mom and dad answering
questions and offering help and ideas. He understood the psychology
behind advertising at a very young age and he understood the reason for
advertising and more importantly he understood he wasn't the victim of
anyone or anything but that he had the power to assess the information
and examine a product and *return* a product if it didn't meet his
expectation. He's been an empowered, informed consumer for over half
his life now and I know some adults who aren't there yet. I believe
it's because he had the freedom to explore this important topic early on
with the help of his parents. I believe it's because understanding is a
process and we didn't try to hurry it and we didn't shut it down, by
limiting TV, when it didn't happen immediately.
Like riding a bike or going potty on the toilet or anything else our
children learn, learning the ways of the economy and consumerism comes to
people gradually through experience. I feel it's much better that Dylan
had the opportunity to learn these things while he was home with us and
where spending his life savings on something which turned out to be a
disappointment was a matter of fifty dollars instead of fifty thousand.
Dylan is twelve now but has always had the freedom to watch anything he
wanted. That doesn't mean we left him alone in the room with the TV and
left him to work things out on his own. We helped him. We explained
that movies weren't real, that people were pretending to but hurt or sick
or mean and that it was like a game and no one really got injured. We
acted some things out ourselves. We watched video about the making of
movies so he could see how some things were made to look realistic. We
talked about the characters and why someone would act mean or why
someone would steal or hurt others. We talked about what makes a story
good and interesting and why we like certain characters even if they
don't seem very nice.
Dylan can recognize formulas in moves and TV programs and predict what
will occur with astounding accuracy. He can tell you which characters
have to die in the end and why. He is almost never surprised by movies
but he loves them and loves to analyze them. He recognizes plot lines
he's seen before and saw very early on how many of the old Star Trek
episode were based on Shakespeare plays.
I want to say this about putting parental fears about TV into
perspective. I came to realize that the people my son talked to
everyday, the real people in his life were capable of saying and doing
things that were far more hurtful and damaging than anything an actor
pretending on TV could say or do. Dylan understood the reason actors did
what they did, to earn a pay check, to tell a story, etc. But it was
often harder to tell him why his Grandfather was mean or why his friend
was being hit by his mom. The woman across the street who locked her
kids out of the house after school so they wouldn't eat all the food was
a bigger concern to me than any pretend scenario involving a chain saw in
the movies. Real world things are troubling and have no easy answers
but pretend is just pretend. I'm still more concerned about the damage
my mother can do with her thoughtless comments about how terrible men are
than I will ever be about a werewolf attack or a Mafia hit or a car crash
on TV.
And here it gets bigger. I'm more concerned with the damage *I* can do
by not respecting my son's ability to learn and grow and process
information. I'm more concerned with the damage I can do by not
respecting his choices and his abilities. I'm here to help him live in
the world of humans and that word includes TV and advertising and rotten
neighbors and warped old grannies. I can help him be empowered or I can
make him afraid and small and I fear making him afraid or paranoid or
small more than I'll ever fear a movie about pretend bad guys doing
pretend bad things.
Deb Lewis
I really liked Sesame street and Reading Rainbow when Dylan was little
but Dylan wasn't interested in them. When he was three or so he finally
told me he really thought Sesame Street was just for babies. I still
watched it and sometimes if I'm flipping through the channels and come
across Sesame Street I watch even now. <g>
Though I had the TV on a lot in the days when he was little he didn't
watch. It was his choice, he just wasn't interested. But when he was
nearly four and had a fast growing love of dinosaurs TNT came out with
"Monster Vision" and Dylan discovered Godzilla! Ah. He was in heaven.
Godzilla movies lead to other monster movies. By the time he was six or
so he'd seen every terrible old Japanese and Korean monster movie we
could lay our hands on.
He also watched Lost in Space, on the Sci-fi channel and old episodes of
Star Trek. He watched Next Generation and Deep Space Nine and Voyager
for the one season we were able to get it.
Science fiction lead to old horror movies and he started a collection of
Werewolf and Vampire and Mummy videos. He loved horror and read his
first Stephen King stories when he was seven or eight.
I had more than one talk with our librarian and the lady at the video
store about what he was "allowed" to check out. <g>
He has always been free to choose what he wanted to watch and *if* he
wanted to watch and I've never known him to watch something just because
it was on. He leaves the room if someone is watching something he's not
interested in. He has rented movies and turned them off when they
weren't what he thought they were. He absolutely knows what he wants to
see and what he doesn't.
There was a time when he was little that he believed every advertisement
he saw on TV. We used to joke that if he ever found the shopping channel
we'd have to hide the credit cards. <g> He would excitedly tell us we
needed the Downey Ball or some gizmo or fantastic cleaner. During the
time he was discovering advertising we talked about the products. Why we
did or didn't need them. We did try some things that were advertised and
found them not to be as appealing as they'd been portrayed in the ads.
Some things we liked a lot but some really were a waste of money.
He saw the Hot Wheels Volcano Blowout race track set advertised on TV.
He wanted one so badly and we found out they were over fifty dollars. We
saved for it and he put away some of his own money until he had enough
and we drove the eighty something miles to the store and he brought it
home. It broke within the first few days. The little pegs that held the
volcano together snapped off and the track and volcano would come apart
every time a car went through. It was heartbreaking. But we wrote our
complaint to the company and though it took quite a long time he was
satisfied with the way they resolved the issue.
His discovery of and understanding of advertising came about really
naturally through exposure and experience. The same way he learned to
tie his shoes and read, he learned about advertising. Not in some
vacuum of TV land but in his home, with his mom and dad answering
questions and offering help and ideas. He understood the psychology
behind advertising at a very young age and he understood the reason for
advertising and more importantly he understood he wasn't the victim of
anyone or anything but that he had the power to assess the information
and examine a product and *return* a product if it didn't meet his
expectation. He's been an empowered, informed consumer for over half
his life now and I know some adults who aren't there yet. I believe
it's because he had the freedom to explore this important topic early on
with the help of his parents. I believe it's because understanding is a
process and we didn't try to hurry it and we didn't shut it down, by
limiting TV, when it didn't happen immediately.
Like riding a bike or going potty on the toilet or anything else our
children learn, learning the ways of the economy and consumerism comes to
people gradually through experience. I feel it's much better that Dylan
had the opportunity to learn these things while he was home with us and
where spending his life savings on something which turned out to be a
disappointment was a matter of fifty dollars instead of fifty thousand.
Dylan is twelve now but has always had the freedom to watch anything he
wanted. That doesn't mean we left him alone in the room with the TV and
left him to work things out on his own. We helped him. We explained
that movies weren't real, that people were pretending to but hurt or sick
or mean and that it was like a game and no one really got injured. We
acted some things out ourselves. We watched video about the making of
movies so he could see how some things were made to look realistic. We
talked about the characters and why someone would act mean or why
someone would steal or hurt others. We talked about what makes a story
good and interesting and why we like certain characters even if they
don't seem very nice.
Dylan can recognize formulas in moves and TV programs and predict what
will occur with astounding accuracy. He can tell you which characters
have to die in the end and why. He is almost never surprised by movies
but he loves them and loves to analyze them. He recognizes plot lines
he's seen before and saw very early on how many of the old Star Trek
episode were based on Shakespeare plays.
I want to say this about putting parental fears about TV into
perspective. I came to realize that the people my son talked to
everyday, the real people in his life were capable of saying and doing
things that were far more hurtful and damaging than anything an actor
pretending on TV could say or do. Dylan understood the reason actors did
what they did, to earn a pay check, to tell a story, etc. But it was
often harder to tell him why his Grandfather was mean or why his friend
was being hit by his mom. The woman across the street who locked her
kids out of the house after school so they wouldn't eat all the food was
a bigger concern to me than any pretend scenario involving a chain saw in
the movies. Real world things are troubling and have no easy answers
but pretend is just pretend. I'm still more concerned about the damage
my mother can do with her thoughtless comments about how terrible men are
than I will ever be about a werewolf attack or a Mafia hit or a car crash
on TV.
And here it gets bigger. I'm more concerned with the damage *I* can do
by not respecting my son's ability to learn and grow and process
information. I'm more concerned with the damage I can do by not
respecting his choices and his abilities. I'm here to help him live in
the world of humans and that word includes TV and advertising and rotten
neighbors and warped old grannies. I can help him be empowered or I can
make him afraid and small and I fear making him afraid or paranoid or
small more than I'll ever fear a movie about pretend bad guys doing
pretend bad things.
Deb Lewis
Kelly Lenhart
> Real world things are troubling and have no easy answersI was looking for a short quote from this amazing essay to use when saying
>but pretend is just pretend. I'm still more concerned about the damage
>my mother can do with her thoughtless comments about how terrible men are
>than I will ever be about a werewolf attack or a Mafia hit or a car crash
>on TV.
PAM PUT THIS ON THE HIGHLIGHTS PLEASE!!!!! -smile-
This is a wonderful summation of the benefits, not just of media freedom,
but of all the freedoms living in the real world give. Thank you for
sharing it.
Kelly