By now, you know I have nothing in my attic:
See. Our attic is really empty.
You know my husband is organized.
You also know my kids have few toys, so it’s easy to clean up. Here I am explaining that WRAL.
And they few clothes in their closets, so they can get dressed by themselves in the mornings and can easily put all their laundry away.
And we have chickens.
Here’s another juicy family secret: We don’t have a television. It’s not that we don’t have cable. We don’t have a physical TV in our home. Anywhere.
We get a lot of strange looks when we tell people this. Here’s why:
1. I do not want my kids to see the violence on TV. As a former newspaper reporter, I witnessed real “Law and Order.” I will never forget the first murder I covered about 14 years ago — a murder suicide, where the father killed his wife and two young children. Then he killed himself. I sat outside their home while the bodies lay in the front yard covered in white sheets. My kids don’t need this stuff in their heads even if it’s fiction on TV.
Plus, if you are watching something “kid friendly,” there are awful commercials, including scary movie trailers. When I was growing up, we had “The Cosby Show,” “Family Ties” and “The Golden Girls.” What happened to shows like that? I wanted to be an obstetrician just like Dr. Huxtable and live in a brownstone in New York!
2. I want my kids to be outside, reading or living in their imaginations. My daughter has all these pretend scenarios she’s doing. I don’t even know what they are about. But she takes them seriously.
3. We had a Clinton-era TV with a VCR built into it. I watched way too much HGTV and Food Network. Then, I hit rock bottom and watched Kardashian marathons. We gave it away before we moved into this house three years ago.
4. Yes, my kids watch movies, but only musicals. “Singing in the Rain,” “Sound of Music,” and “Oklahoma” are some favorites.
5. Yes, I still watch some TV shows on Hulu on my laptop. “The Daily Show,” “The Mindy Project,” “The Good Wife,” and “The Tonight Show Staring Jimmy Fallon,” are my favorites. Most are comedies because I don’t need more violent images in my head.
Being TV free also opens up space in my home. Our surfaces are not cluttered with huge flat screens and the 8 million remotes that come with them.
So now you know. And I triple dog dare you to give up your TVs. It opens up space and your imagination.