A model for the rest of us
Speaking of being counter-cultural and killing your TV, a reader writes in to tell the beautiful results of living such a life:
We killed our tv 30 yrs ago when our youngest was 3 yrs old. We spent our evenings reading 1) lives of the saints 2) good secular literature such as the Chronicles of Narnia 3 and memorizing the Baltimore Catechism. We had a prayerful, peaceful, joyful home with NO rebellion whatever when the kids reached their teens. They NEVER asked why they had to go to Mass. At ages 32 and 30 they are fervent Catholics and my daughter is a contemplative nun.
Aside from that, killing the tv was the best financial decision we made. The kids’ attention span was not being constantly being fractured,and the people who tested them for the school district (two years apart) both remarked on their extraordinary attention span. They both did very well in school. My daughter was an A student for the 16 yrs of her schooling and they both got a lot of scholarship help on a merit basis. In fact, my daughter was a National Merit Scholar. None of the above would have happened with a TV. Our home was very conducive to study without it. It paid off.
It drives me to distraction to hear parents worry about “the culture” as they are walking out the door to drive over to Best Buy to buy a still bigger entertainment center to import the dreaded culture into their own home and into the hearts and minds of their children.
It also drives me to distraction to hear all the talk about the “vocations crisis.” There is no vocations crisis. There is a parenting crisis. There is a leadership crisis. When priests and bishops kill their own tvs, and can persuade even as little as 5% of their young parents to do the same, within 15 to 20 yrs they would have more priests and religious than they would know what to do with- especially if they pointed them in the direction of the lives of the saints, the Baltimore Catechism and family evenings together.
Well said!
Wouldn’t it be grand if this sort of teaching was included in pre-Cana courses?
Dang! And here I thought that the same results in our family, including no teen rebellion and kids who go to mass while away at college on their own … was because of our good parenting. Because we do watch television. We just chose shows wisely and limited the amount of time that the kids could watch each day when they were young. And watched it with them.
Oh, wait, maybe I can credit not watching movies … nope, we do that too.
Or not dancing. Nope, that’s in our lives too.
Or was it not drinking? …
Ah well … that’s why I like the Catholic Church. And St. Paul, of course.
“Welcome anyone who is weak in faith, but not for disputes over opinions.
One person believes that one may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables.
The one who eats must not despise the one who abstains, and the one who abstains must not pass judgment on the one who eats; for God has welcomed him.”
Romans 14: 1-3
I have to agree that not watching tv has a huge affect on how you see life and behave in it.
When I went through some “financial difficulty” a few years back, all I had was a roof over my head and a LOT of free time.
I rediscovered my Catholic faith because of the incredible amount of reading I did. First sciFi, and when that ran out, I went to my first love history, which brought me to H. W. Crocker’s magnificent book TRIUMPH.
Which of course sparked my interest and I read from Cardinal Ratzinger’s Salt of the Earth to Thomas A Kempis’ Imitation of Christ.
Now if I am ever blessed with a wonderful lady and a family, absolutely no tv (well maybe a little for Fulton Sheen and A Man for All Season’s, stuff like that;)
And this is just for Julie D…. with lots of sugar on top!:
And why seest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye; and seest not the beam that is in thy own eye?
–Holy Gospel of Saint Matthew 7:3
Depends on the beam, right?
If my husband and I are taking every Friday night to watch the 3-1/2 hours of television that we have deemed worth watching … then where is the beam? Because there is good television out there. One must just be discerning. Even the Vatican saw the value in House, M.D. right?
Just as one is for reading (check my Goodreads for the variety of good reading I do.
).
Just as one is for movie watching …
Just as one is for having a cocktail for happy hour with one’s husband … (A cocktail, not many) on Saturday and Sunday evenings while listening to jazz.
All those things (well, not tv) were condemned by my best friend in high school’s denomination … the Church of the Nazarene.
There is no great trick in condemning something like television out of hand. The interesting thing is in being able to find the good apples. And to enjoy them.
If people don’t want to try meat, well ok. But don’t think that those of us who do are missing out on all those other things! We get the veggies also!
Julie,
No question that TV is not inherently evil (although I would argue that it is inherently inferior to many other forms of entertainment, such as books or board games). I am not an absolutist: my wife and I will sometimes watch shows via DVD on the computer.
I do not doubt that some families can have a TV and not allow it to lead them into sinful or wasteful behavior. But too many have read St. Paul’s advice and assumed they were in the “strong” camp. If you are strong, but treat yourself as weak, you cannot come to harm. But if you are weak and treat yourself as strong, you can easily be led astray.
I have seen too many people claim to “rarely” watch TV but in fact it wastes much of their time and many of the things they watch are questionable at best and downright sinful at worst.
For me and my family, I’d rather not even be tempted down that path because the benefits of having a TV are so small and easily replaceable. Does that make me one of the “weak”? Perhaps, but it does keep me from the near occasion of sin and I don’t really miss out on anything of real value either.