cable-less update

It's been almost two weeks now since the big plug-pull. And what a great couple of weeks it has been. We have been listening to podcasts every night from The White Horse Inn, John Piper, John MacArthur, R. C. Sproul, or just listening to music, talking, reading, crocheting, etc., or the best thing, NOTHING playing. No noise. The quiet is calming. We also find we are going to bed much earlier now, and waking more refreshed.

For the sake of full disclosure, we did get a digital broadcast antenna installed so that we could pull free digital signals. We get ABC, NBC, PBS (3 great PBS stations - Create, Kids, and standard PBS), CBS and FOX, a local 100% weather station (which is important to have) plus a handful of independent and Spanish-speaking. But like Chad said last night when I asked him to see what was on, "it takes me about 20 seconds to surf through," and we were done with it. It is so much easier to turn off the TV now, and it is off 90% of the time.

Go ahead, pull the plug! It's wonderful!

we are officially cable-TV less

What a feeling of freedom! The topic of time wasting, quality of watching and godliness has been heavy on our hearts. We decided and successfully killed the cable on Saturday afternoon.

I'm going to expand this post more...

things that are done better with the tv off

1. pray
2. read
3. think
4. sleep
5. crochet
6. conversation
7. exercise - well maybe not this one as I need the distraction
8. puzzles
9. clean the house
10. organize closets
11. blog
12. play with the girls
13. contemplation
14. I could go on and on and on but I need to take a shower...
    

think outside of the box

Today I'm calling our local cable provider to turn off our cable for a month. We know we should just go cold turkey, but hey, it's forty year old habit. I'm sure it will be like walking through molasses to get through the millions of sales pitches and irresistible offers that the C*x Rep will throw at me. Our goal is to be cable-free. I don't believe we will be purchasing a digital antenna, either. Our goal is to utilize streaming Netflix and DVDs. We're not anti-entertainment, just for anti-force-fed media. We already get most of our news from the web anyway, and we stay informed.

For several years now, I've recommended a book by Juliet B. Schor, Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture about the unethical marketing practices corporations are using, aiming as young as infancy. Today, John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute wrote an amazing commentary about this very thing. Please take the time to read it, even if you can't devote the time to the Schor book. Here's a link to the Whitehead commentary, and an excerpt:

Children are in greater physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual danger now than at any other time during the life of this nation--and the threat is coming from a multi-billion dollar industry that is using the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform children into profitable consumers from cradle to grave.

It's no surprise that the pre-teen demographic has become a major draw for marketers and big business. There are presently 52 million kids under the age of 12 in the United States. These kids spend $40 billion of their own money on everything from clothes and music to toys and electronics annually, but more importantly, they influence an additional $700 billion in parental spending.

silly mommy

Anyone out there watch -- ahem -- put on "Charlie & Lola" for their little ones? If not, "it's worth giving it a go." It's a really clever animated children's series from the UK, based upon the series of children's books by Lauren Childs of the same name (she also wrote the "Clarice Bean" book series).


Anywayz....Ingy has loved it since she was almost 3, when it used to be on Playhouse Disney (I don't know if it's still on because, well, see my rant a few weeks ago). There is a character that the children like to watch at the movies and read in comics. For 3 years now, I have thought his name was "Fat Cat." Ingrid gently corrected me today, "No Mommy, he's BAT Cat." I had to prove it for myself, so I turned on the subtitles. I think it's time to get a hearing test.



PS Lauren Childs' website is really clever! Check it out...

i'm not imagining things!

Okay, I thought I was going crazy, or that at least that the cable company was messing with my mind. Playhouse Disney has disappeared. Well, yes, I'm partially right. Apparently the powers that be over at the Big Ears have downsized the Playhouse Disney lineup. For those of you beyond preschool parenting years, Playhouse Disney is simply the block of programming aimed at preschoolers from early morning until about noon on The Disney Channel. It was commercial free (save a few surprisingly subtle "sponsored by" spots) and offered sweet, innocent, fun and age-appropriate shows for the little ones.

While there are a few of the programs that have been on PD still showing, the PD branding, lack of commercials and preschooler friendly bump and segue spots have disappeared. Between shows the airtime is NOW packed with ads for Hannah Montana, Zack and Cody, High School Musical and all things Tweener. Blah.

As my loyal readers know, we aren't a huge kids TV household, but I do allow them to watch a little bit in the morning and afternoons during "strategic" times for Mommy -- my coffee time and dinner prep time. I don't cloister my girls, but I do want to control, as much as I can, the flow of what commercial crud is forced into their line of sight. We are in the process of de-commercializing their wardrobe (sorry girls, no more Princess clothing...books or movies only), trying to de-"plastic" their toys and basically turn them into little Luddites (just kidding). Seriously, I don't see any reasonable need for them to even know who in the world Hannah Montana is...she would not contribute anything positive to their childhoods.

I'm hoping that the reason for this programming change is a preschool-dedicated channel similar to Noggin and Sprout in the offing, considering the switch to Digital is coming in a few weeks.

Tell me what you think.