TV

In response to Anaise's blog about TV and other wandering, disjointed thoughts:

I was raised in an illiterate Italian family home. A grandmother and grandfather, my mother and her younger sister and brother and me were all living in a three bedroom house. Well, TV was new and our TV was on all the time. We watched everything we could. It was exciting to have this magical screen that could bring a tonsillectomy into our living room. A live tonsillectomy. I was 5 years old and I saw a tonsillectomy being performed LIVE. Gross!

We watched Roller Derby. Talk about senseless. A bunch of rowdy women (or men) skating in circles and trying to beat each other up. Scared me to death! Also, westerns, westerns, westerns. No offense, but I hated watching those dumb westerns! My grandpa ruled and he LOVED westerns. Yuck.

There wasn't a book in the house. Why should there be a book, no one could really read much, if at all. Only a couple of the children graduated from high school. I do believe, though, that all the grandchildren graduated from high school, thank goodness. One grandson (my half-brother) got a BA and an MA. My one male cousin got a BA and almost finished an MA. I got an AA and now, 33 years later, I am working on my BA. (I only have 12 classes left in Deaf Studies at Utah Valley University.)

Anyway, back to the TV. My entire growing up years the TV was going all day and night. Talk about a bad habit! A very hard habit to break. When I got married I didn't want it to be that way. My husband also was raised with 24/7 TV. The fight for freedom from TV has been long and hard and we are still in the middle of it!

Watching TV is a very comfortable habit. Some evenings I just turn that tube on and sit on my butt and watch anything that I can find while I surf for something "good". I almost get addicted to any channel I turn on.

Of course, there are problems with watching TV all the time. Fortunately I did learn how to read from my divorced father. I visited him on weekends. He was a voracious reader. In fact his whole life consisted of reading in bed and going to work to pay the bills. He bought me all sorts of Little Golden Books and comic books and fun things to read. He made reading so enjoyable.

Well, when I was about 9 years old I stopped visiting my father. All that lying around reading was boring. I wanted to be outside with friends in my neighborhood. The reading then slowed down. TV took over. I spent so much time watching TV. I didn't start reading much until much later. This, of course, has taken a toll on my learning English. Sure I know English to a point. But there are so many words with which I struggle. "Read, read, read", I have been told. I fall asleep! Reading is one of my favorite things to do, but I fall asleep whenever I read!

So now I am trying to improve my English vocabulary because I am interpreting in an academic setting and I need to be able to figure out what the teacher is saying. I have a dictionary in every room of the house. I am constantly looking up words while I am reading (not just skipping them, which is what I tend to do) and writing out what they mean. Man, I am too old for this!

I wonder why my father didn't use his fabulous vocabulary with me when I was young. That certainly would have helped me.

I have so many things to overcome in life that were caused by living in my grandparents home, (actually TV is one of the lesser of the many problems I have), but I LOVE my Sicilian Italian heritage and I wouldn't change it even if I could. (Part of me wonders if that is a completely true statement, but I really think it is probably true. No! It is most definitely true!)

So, Anaise, my point is for you to keep up the good work. I would never say go Cold Turkey because I can totally understand those late nights/early mornings/hours on end/want to find a cave and hibernate times. But you guys are on the right path for your children. They are doing wonderful things. TV does not dominate your or their lives in any way, shape, manner or form. They love playing, learning, exploring, experimenting, cooking and playing more. You really don't need to fret over TV. You are following the Prophet and apostles. TV isn't a big part of your lives. I think what President Hinckley was referring to were people like my family and me and what we used to do. (We could still cut down even more but that blasted American Idol. Talk about senseless. My friend tried out for it and I got hooked a few years ago when he told me about it.)

The sad thing is that my husband and I were raised on TV. We raised our girls on a lot of TV. Fortunately, Dianna doesn't even have cable in her house with her boys. But it is a struggle for her and it would have been more helpful if I had fought the fight sooner. We can never give up! I wasn't raised in an intellectual, academic home so it is foreign to me. Anaise, you are fortunate because you were raised with intelletual stimulation and you have always lived your life in pursuit of learning and growing and you raise your children in a love-of-learning atmosphere. TV is a very small part of your very full life. You can enjoy it once in a while.