A good choice?

I am so glad I am not your son! The speaker of this sentence is one of my colleagues during one of our lunch discussions. The reason for the statement? I just told him that we do not have a T V. Yes, you heard me right, my 3 men and me, we do not have a television, by choice. At least by my husband's and my choice.

That doesn't mean that the boys are totally deprived of watching anything. The boys spend a good part of their week day with their grandparents, who have a TV. Tim knows various cartoon characters varying from Pokemon and Parman to Hattori and God-knows-what. They both like watching Animal Planet and National Geographic programs. At home, we have a computer...where they get to watch a fair amount of cartoons on CD, and things that interest them like wallpapers of trains and trucks which we show them as slideshows with music in the background.....weird, you think? Well, they like it.

Do I think that they are deprived of something? No, I don't. We try and have a timetable as far as watching stuff on the PC is concerned. Any other time, we try to get them involved in finger painting, block printing, card making, play-dough, cooking, cleaning, reparing....everything that we do. Tim has already managed to learn how to role out a semi-decent roti!

Another thing I know for sure is that we have a lot more peace at home now, than we would have had with a television. I for one, would be stuck in front of the box surfing between Disney, Cartoon Network, HBO and Star Movies. Not making a general statement but I know families where no one talks about what happens to them on a day-to-day basis because one or the other person is always watching something on TV...that is definitely not something I would like to have in our home.

For all I know, we may buy a TV at some point of time and the boys will stop being interested in joining us in the things they enjoy now, but right now, I am just happy with the way things are and would not want to change anything.
My boys may not be completely prepared for school conversations when everyone discusses the latest Disney serials, but on the other hand, I hope they come back home and we can sit and talk about the day and bake something they like...and go out on fun picnics on weekends and they don't feel that they are missing out on anything else.....