“I just want to be honest with you. I have given up any and all pretense of monitoring my kids’ television viewing. I won’t be taking them to any R-rated movies anytime soon because, hello, awkward for me, but as far as the TV goes, I’m done parenting.”
Ellen: That was my melodramatic confession to Erin as I overheard some ladies near us in a lecture we were attending talking about “screen time.”
Erin: Emphasis on the melodramatic. But, to be fair, this is a bit of a departure from conventional wisdom. I can see the hackles raising from here.
Ellen: I’m not so sure it’s conventional wisdom so much as following the movement of the herd. Regardless, I just felt like you needed to know my stance. We hit hard on the “sensible” and on this point: I. just. don’t. care. any. more.
Erin: This might be a good time for a reminder that you have a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old. Ellen’s not setting up preschoolers in front of The Walking Dead with popcorn: no need to pull out the pitchforks, people.
Ellen: True. While I never really got bent out of shape about duration of viewing–if I needed to park my kids in front of the tube for four hours so we could have clean clothes and sanitary toilets, then party on–I DID monitor content.
But I think I got a little brainwashed, or maybe entrenched is a better word, about shielding them from content. Since I always saw the TV as something for my convenience and not really their entertainment, I was still not letting them watch nighttime TV with us well into their middle school years. Not even sitcoms.
Erin: So what changed?
Ellen: American Horror Story. Just a couple of months ago, I walked into my youngest’s room and saw her hunched over her phone.
“So what are you watching?”
“American Horror Story: Murder House.”
“Well, I think you should have asked me and I think you should stop right now.”
“I already watched five episodes at M’s house.”
Erin: Well, that horse is out of the barn.
Ellen: Make that a demonic horse trailing entrails bent on eating bunny rabbits alive and you would be more accurate.
Erin: Ooo, you were at quite the crossroads. So what did you do after you bleached your eyes?
Ellen: As far as I could see, I had two choices. One, I could lay down the “this is forbidden” hammer and set her up to sneak behind my back because of a decree we both knew I could never enforce. Every kid carries a TV in their pocket nowadays.
Erin: I learned the hard way arbitrary battle lines in the sand are a pitfall.
Ellen: Exactly. I had a crisis moment where I was like: at what point does the entertainment shielding stop? Shouldn’t she be allowed to choose her own entertainment? What am I protecting her from?
So I picked door number two: taking it to the 58-inch in the family room to watch it together, and discuss it.
Erin: I like it. Go big or go home. So how did it go?
Ellen: It was really uncomfortable all the way through the second season, Asylum. We had some brutally “interesting” discussions about violence, rape, and mental illness. We always say you should use pop culture as kindling for conversation with your kids. Well, I was definitely walking the cringe-worthy walk through that season.
Erin: This feels like the right time to let you know I let my four oldest kids watch the Godfather with us. Now, “watch” is definitely in air quotes for certain parts with the 11-year-old. I had him sitting next to me the whole time and there was a fair bit of ear-muffing and blindfolding through some of the grittier parts. But it’s an iconic film and I’m glad that I had the chance to watch it with my kids. The fact that later that week my 16-year-old daughter got bonus points for nailing a reference to the film in social studies class just put the cherry on top of my cinematic cake.
Ellen: I wish I had been there to see that! You can take heart, though, at least you left the 7-year-old out of the fun.
I am not done with my confessions, though. We went on to watch the third season of American Horror Story, but I Googled the fourth season and drew the line there. Freak Show just seemed too gratuitous and that is saying A LOT.
Erin: See? You still monitor. But my parents didn’t at all. I was left to my own devices and figured out pretty quickly that I’m a total wuss and could never even dream of watching something like “American Horror Story.” But I love cheesy dramas, like double cheesy with extra cheese on top, (Hello, Greek and Summerland).
The larger point is that I had the chance to figure that out for myself. In the midst of my teenage struggle for control and identity, I was being given an opportunity to wrestle with one important question: what did I like.
Ellen: Okay, final confession. I don’t know that I was making a larger stand so much as Freak Show wasn’t on Netflix yet. But don’t despair, we found a new obsession while scrolling the menu: Pretty Little Liars. Still dealing with murder, but much less graphically . . . and more deliciously.
I initially groaned when they suggested it, but I have to admit it has led me down memory lane.
Erin: You want to tell me about this blackmail/murder mystery you were involved with in high school?
Ellen: Calm down. There is no bestseller on the horizon for me. I was WAY too boring for that. No, I’m talking about the group bonding effect of watching trashy serial TV with your friends and family. The anticipation. The cringing. The collective experience.
I lived it in high school rushing home with my friends to watch General Hospital on the VCR; in college, gathering in the dorm lounge to devour 90210; and in married life, eating up the cheesiness of Melrose Place like a boatload of tasty Cheezits.
So, I guess what I’m saying is that I have let TV evolve from a babysitter to a (sometimes questionable) family activity . . . at least until we can go outside again without dressing like a fur trader from 1659. You know, to avoid frostbite.
Erin: And I guess what I’m saying is that the point of it being questionable at all is moot if you make your television watching a family activity. Would I have wanted my kids to watch “The Godfather” without me? Um, no. This movie milestone was mine to share, and so was the post-movie chatter.
It was every bit as important to me as a hike on our favorite trail, not just for the moment but for the added benefits–us all cuddled together in front of a show together, the shared point of cultural reference (nothing says “I love you” like a well-timed horse’s head in your bed joke, the Brando impressions). Censors, take the night off, we’re making memories that last here.
Ellen: Sometimes you have to get through letting your kids grow up just like you have to get through this horrendous winter: just plow through it.
Erin: Or, at the very least, Netflix it.
So what do you think?
– Ellen and Erin
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