Yesterday I arrived home from work. As fate would have it, the kids had been out with mom after school or still working on homework. No one had an opportunity to turn on the TV, that no longer held the promise of entertainment. I was ready to drop the bomb. And here is a synopsis of what went down kid by kid:
MacKenna (age 14)
Her initial reaction was confusion, tempered with the idea that I was merely pulling her leg and joking with her. I think she saw in my face that this was the real deal. Internally, MacKenna struggled to keep cool because that is what 14 year old’s attempt to do in every aspect of their life, even though it rarely actually happens. “Oh,” she calmly replied. “Does mom know you did this?” she continued. “Yes MacKenna. It was a decision your mother and I both made together,” I said. At this point she turned inward and began running through the litany of cable shows she would be missing. I have to admit, she took the bombshell in stride. She showed some descent maturity and poise. That is, until she remembered Glee!
Peyton (age 11)
Peyton followed me to my room. He jumped up on the bed. “What’s going on Dad?” sensing something important had just been discussed in the other room with his older sister. “We dropped the cable television,” I responded. “Are you kidding me? What about Sportscenter?” he cried out. “Yeah buddy, I am going to miss it to,” I replied hoping that he would garner some shared sense of loss with me. Not happening. “Why didn’t we get a vote in this decision Dad? Isn’t this a democracy?” he declared. “No, Peyton. It is actually a monarchy”. About this time the meltdown walked in.
Hadley Lou (age 6)
“Dad got rid of our TV shows Lou Lou,” Peyton told his little sister. “You’re joking me, right Daddy,” she replied. It is at that point she went over to the flat screen and turned it on. With her small back turned to me and facing the 40 inch plasma, she waited as only a pale blue screen came into view. It is at that moment that she realized that there really was no more cable. No more Backyardigans, no more Olivia, no more Nick Jr. She turned. I have to say, I felt a little bad. Then she proceeded to wail and cry and throw her body to the floor. I can’t stand the Backyardigans.
All was well. We slept nicely and this morning the kids hugged m…well, one of them.
Mike, it’s great that you are doing this. Delilah hasn’t really known regular crazy multi-channel TV because we got rid of it early on. We never watched it so it was mostly for financial reasons. We now have an HD antenna that gives us a few channels but mostly stays on PBS. We do have the computer hooked up to the TV and we can get onto Netflix or Hulu but for some reason, we just don’t use either that much. One thing, she never sees commercials (or rarely if we’re watching Hulu) and we pick the programming. If she sees Spongebob on Netflix, while browsing, I tell her she needs to choose something else and she’s good about doing so. So, she ends up watching the PBS stations anyway. That said, I’m wondering how this will all work out once she gets older and able to manipulate the controls herself. This is one thing I don’t want her to learn to do for herself as she gets older!
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