(Approaching) parenthood
Jun. 3rd, 2002 11:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sanpaku_backup[Partially assembled]
Mrs.: "So, we're having a kid."
Mr. : "Yes."
Mrs.: "You know, we're going to have to make changes."
Mr. : "Yeah."
Mrs.: "Uh huh."
Mr. : "Like not swearing all the time."
Mrs.: "In front of the kid."
Mr. : "Uh huh."
Mrs.: "Fuck!"
Mr. : "I know."
Mrs.: "I mean..."
Mr. : "How the fuck will we do that?"
Mrs.: "It fucking sucks."
Me : "Ah, fuck it."
*************
We have decided that with the approach of parenthood, we will be learning how to activate the V-chip in the television. We will use it to block out all G-rated children's programming.
*************
Years ago, Young Sanpaku announced to his girlfriend of the time that he wouldn't raise his kids with television. "Lawrence," she replied, "you're going to raise a gaggle of geeks."
After thinking it through, years ago, I concluded: kids without knowledge of TV are vulnerable to commercials and manipulation. You cannot deprive a kid of basic self-defense. Besides, you and everyone you know had tons of TV growing up, and you all seem to have... wait, what was I thinking about? Never mind. Hey, wonder what's on TV...
Yet something irrational, almost primal, comes to my mind when I contemplate kid + TV + my house. I don't know if it is so much that I hate TV as that I hate the idea of watching my kid watching TV... it is unnerving. It brings up my fundamental disgust with the culture and my existential feelings of dread at the world outside my skull.
Plus there's the hatefulness of television marketed at children. Talking to my friends with a one-year-old, about how thankful they are for the Teletubbies. Just park the kid in front of the Teletubbies to get a few minutes of relief from constant screaming.
"But you and I used to ridicule the Teletubbies when they came out," I say. "How can you put them in front of that junk?"
"Oh, you'll find out," they say.
I don't like the sound of that.
All my friends with kids have a large collection of puffy white boxes for the kid videos. That's how they sell them. I know. But they offend me. I do not like the idea of having a collection of narcotizing puffy white boxes in a few years.
On Saturday, talking to my colleague E., who has a four-year-old. I shouldn't have gotten into it. "We are thinking about throwing out the TV," I say, like a joke, as though saying such a thing to a mother could be a practical topic of conversation as opposed to a gauntlet thrown down on the living room table. (I'm an idiot that way.) The result was a somewhat testy harangue on how children need interaction with the culture industry, that's what they learn today in school, it's an important life skill, parents who deprive their kids of it do them no service at all. This is all true, actually. I have not thought about it, as she obviously has.
But to hear it brings up my own weak defensiveness. "What you're saying is true," I replied, "but I am not particularly crazy about those trends." That's what I said. What I was thinking was, "I'll show them!" With a maniacal gleam in my eye: "I'll throw the TV out the window right now!! I'll raise a gaggle of geeks, DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!"
Ahem.
I don't really have that much of a problem with the Teletubbies. My gradual senescence has prevented me from hating things as I should. But I can still work up a lather about that god damn mother fucker Barney. Why? It is not that Barney is that much more offensive than the Teletubbies, really. Is it the marketing? No.
It is that the Teletubbies are really less annoying. Or maybe cuter.
Which makes me loathe myself.
Do I have no principles at all? That's the kind of question you ask. Whether everything you think you believe is just entirely capricious or accidental, without any consistency or real meaning. Despite years of thinking all the time, you have actually not decided anything yet and you've really just circled around in your own muddled brain. And if so, what right do you have to impose your own incoherence on some as-yet-unborn progeny. Before you have a kid, you are supposed to have figured some of these things out at least to your own satisfaction.
Back to television. We both viscerally want to get rid of the television. But we have to concede that this is unlikely to obtain permanently. So we will try to banish the thing to some third floor attic somewhere.
Yeah. Uh huh. Sure you will.
Mrs.: "So, we're having a kid."
Mr. : "Yes."
Mrs.: "You know, we're going to have to make changes."
Mr. : "Yeah."
Mrs.: "Uh huh."
Mr. : "Like not swearing all the time."
Mrs.: "In front of the kid."
Mr. : "Uh huh."
Mrs.: "Fuck!"
Mr. : "I know."
Mrs.: "I mean..."
Mr. : "How the fuck will we do that?"
Mrs.: "It fucking sucks."
Me : "Ah, fuck it."
*************
We have decided that with the approach of parenthood, we will be learning how to activate the V-chip in the television. We will use it to block out all G-rated children's programming.
*************
Years ago, Young Sanpaku announced to his girlfriend of the time that he wouldn't raise his kids with television. "Lawrence," she replied, "you're going to raise a gaggle of geeks."
After thinking it through, years ago, I concluded: kids without knowledge of TV are vulnerable to commercials and manipulation. You cannot deprive a kid of basic self-defense. Besides, you and everyone you know had tons of TV growing up, and you all seem to have... wait, what was I thinking about? Never mind. Hey, wonder what's on TV...
Yet something irrational, almost primal, comes to my mind when I contemplate kid + TV + my house. I don't know if it is so much that I hate TV as that I hate the idea of watching my kid watching TV... it is unnerving. It brings up my fundamental disgust with the culture and my existential feelings of dread at the world outside my skull.
Plus there's the hatefulness of television marketed at children. Talking to my friends with a one-year-old, about how thankful they are for the Teletubbies. Just park the kid in front of the Teletubbies to get a few minutes of relief from constant screaming.
"But you and I used to ridicule the Teletubbies when they came out," I say. "How can you put them in front of that junk?"
"Oh, you'll find out," they say.
I don't like the sound of that.
All my friends with kids have a large collection of puffy white boxes for the kid videos. That's how they sell them. I know. But they offend me. I do not like the idea of having a collection of narcotizing puffy white boxes in a few years.
On Saturday, talking to my colleague E., who has a four-year-old. I shouldn't have gotten into it. "We are thinking about throwing out the TV," I say, like a joke, as though saying such a thing to a mother could be a practical topic of conversation as opposed to a gauntlet thrown down on the living room table. (I'm an idiot that way.) The result was a somewhat testy harangue on how children need interaction with the culture industry, that's what they learn today in school, it's an important life skill, parents who deprive their kids of it do them no service at all. This is all true, actually. I have not thought about it, as she obviously has.
But to hear it brings up my own weak defensiveness. "What you're saying is true," I replied, "but I am not particularly crazy about those trends." That's what I said. What I was thinking was, "I'll show them!" With a maniacal gleam in my eye: "I'll throw the TV out the window right now!! I'll raise a gaggle of geeks, DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!"
Ahem.
I don't really have that much of a problem with the Teletubbies. My gradual senescence has prevented me from hating things as I should. But I can still work up a lather about that god damn mother fucker Barney. Why? It is not that Barney is that much more offensive than the Teletubbies, really. Is it the marketing? No.
It is that the Teletubbies are really less annoying. Or maybe cuter.
Which makes me loathe myself.
Do I have no principles at all? That's the kind of question you ask. Whether everything you think you believe is just entirely capricious or accidental, without any consistency or real meaning. Despite years of thinking all the time, you have actually not decided anything yet and you've really just circled around in your own muddled brain. And if so, what right do you have to impose your own incoherence on some as-yet-unborn progeny. Before you have a kid, you are supposed to have figured some of these things out at least to your own satisfaction.
Back to television. We both viscerally want to get rid of the television. But we have to concede that this is unlikely to obtain permanently. So we will try to banish the thing to some third floor attic somewhere.
Yeah. Uh huh. Sure you will.
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TeeVee
Date: 2002-06-03 10:55 pm (UTC)Make sure Sanpaku, Jr. gets his RDA of Jerry Springer.
Date: 2002-06-04 05:18 am (UTC)I lived without a television for much of my college life, and for a couple of years here in Pittsburgh. I GOT SO MUCH STUFF DONE! When I did eventually get a television I thought, I won't turn it on so much. But then I got cable. And then I got digital cable. I'm screwed...
But seriously, the most important thing with television, young or old, is knowing how to turn it off. It's good when you watch specific shows that interest you. It's bad when it's only on as a lightbulb for starin'.