Running with Scissors

Sara Peterson-Davis has worked as a newspaper researcher and reporter, as well as a communications director and consultant. She and her husband, Monty Davis, can be found in Liberty, Mo., keeping their two children from running with scissors. Contact Sara

Keep Up the Good Work

by Sara Peterson-Davis

I don’t know whether to thank the members of the Writers Guild of America or all those network executives and production company bigwigs.

But if a bitterly protracted labor dispute is what it takes to create television so boring and repetitive that it makes my family rediscover the art of reading. I say keep up the good work, folks.

Now I won’t go so far as to say the televisions have gone completely dark at our house, but they’ve had enough down time to give their cathode rays some much-needed rest.

Like most families with kids, we’re pretty busy throughout the week. Neither my husband nor I have much time to sit down and watch television. When we turn the television on, it’s usually more for background noise. We’re more Reader’s Digest television viewers, just picking up the highlights of whatever’s on.

But our kids are dedicated viewers. More often than I’d like they can be found in front of the tube.

We tried to cut down on the whole family’s television viewing a couple of years ago by dropping all but the most basic cable service.

As he was about to literally cut the cord and send us to back to the 1970s, the cable guy seeing our kids’ tear-streaked faces pressed against the sliding glass door took pity. He left us with a couple extra channels that halted our television de-evolution at about 1990.

Without 80-some channels to remote through, my husband and I watched less television, but our kids could always seem to find something to watch.

Now, that’s beginning to change.

The other day our 13-year-old son got up off the living room floor, turned off an episode of something he probably shouldn’t have been watching anyway and walked out of the room.

I was stunned. Now, if you’re unaware of the television viewing habits of the average teen-aged boy, it’s important to note that they never turn off a television of their own free will. They also rarely utter the following words - “There’s nothing on television. I think I’m going to go read.”

A couple of nights later, I came upstairs with a basketful of laundry expecting to find our eight-year-old watching some tween television sitcom. Instead I found her reading an A to Z Mystery.

“I’m almost finished!” she said quickly looking back to the page.

While our kids are excellent readers – both reading well above their grade level – they’re not known to spontaneously read after a long day at school.

It gets better.

I knew we were slipping free of the bonds of television when we sat down to dinner the other night and we ate an entire meal together without talking about television. Nobody mentioned what was on that night or what had been on that day. Neither one of the kids quoted something uttered by any celebrity or character on television.

Instead, we talked about the day and what was going on with people we knew and about some of the books we were reading. As a mom who is always pushing one book or another, it was a dizzying experience.

So if you’re out there all you television types, could you do me a favor. Just keep not talking to each other.

Meanwhile, we’ll be curled up with a good book.

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