Greetings from an almost TV-free weekend

So, I finally did the scary thing. I turned off the TV for the entire weekend.

OK, so the girls watched “Dr. Doolittle” on Saturday night before bed, and one show on Nickelodeon last night. But for most of their (and our) waking hours this swelteringly humid weekend, we played. And ate meals at the table together. And played some more.

For most working outside the home parents (and many stay-at-home parents, I suspect) the TV is a gift from God. It gives us the needed break to make a meal or a phone call, do the laundry or just have 30 minutes of peace. I am also guilty of letting my children watch TV for many, many hours on a weekend, just so I can take a nap on the bed while they watch, or so I can read the newspaper or a book.

Or I often watch with them, and know instantly, not whether they’ve already seen this episode of “Fairly Odd Parents” or “Sponge Bob Square Pants” before (they have), but whether it was long enough ago to warrant another viewing without complaint.

Intellectually, I know and understand that watching too much TV isn’t good for them. It can lead to obesity, lower reading scores, the uncanny ability to recite TV commercials at will for decades, yada yada. Guidelines for such TV abuse can be found on Web sites like this:

http://www.ithaca.edu/looksharp/resources_tv.php

I agree with everything they write, but they don’t live in my home, and I am not, nor will I ever be, a perfect mother. Heck, my mother let me watch “Dark Shadows,” whatever 4:30 movie was on, and the news since I was 4 years old. And I turned out fairly well, I reason with myself.

An online group of mothers I know once held a poll on how many hours a day their children watched television. I was amazed that no one said (admitted?) that they let their children watch TV for more than 1 or 2 hours per day. And many even qualified that by saying that such TV time only included PBS channels or educational videos. Needless to say, I didn’t respond.

I’m not going to outright accuse them of lying, but I have to say that in my heart of hearts – I didn’t believe them. I think the stigma of allowing children to watch a lot of television has made us ashamed of the hours we let them sit in front of the boob tube. I was (am) certainly embarrassed that our TV watching is so out of control.

During the week, I can rationalize it because my elderly father watches them after school and camp, and can’t really run around with them too much. Letting them watch TV makes it easier on him.

But the weekends are another matter. We’ve had perfectly beautiful spring and summer weekend days pass by in a blur while they sit transfixed in front of the TV, demanding food and drink be brought to them like the royalty they believe they are (and yes – to keep the peace, I often do it).

Well, this weekend I decided I’d make more healthy meals for them (another blog entry for another day), and that the TV was staying off.

I pulled the plug from both TVs, told them that the electricity was off (“Then why is the light still on?” my precocious Jessica inquired. “Because it’s just the TV electricity that’s off,” I responded, which was, technically, true.

Amazingly, instead of the bored, whiny, annoying 5-year-olds I expected as a result, we had a really nice weekend. We played games, we horsed around, we bought them new 2-wheeler bicycles, we played in the sprinkler at the local playground, and interacted with them in all kinds of interesting, and enjoyable ways.

What surprised me the most was that they were actually less whiny than usual and even Jessica, who loves TV more than anything except me and her father, only asked for it once or twice. When I firmly said that we were doing something else instead, she quickly accepted it and moved on to riding her scooter or building something or completing another project we had lined up for them. Lily didn't even miss it at all.

So maybe those mothers weren’t lying after all. Maybe they’ve discovered what I finally learned by turning off the TV. That it makes it easier to connect with my children when I don’t have to compete with animated sponges, that it really doesn’t take too much effort to come up with activities that we can all enjoy, and that while they’re completing a project or playing imaginative games with each other and their assorted rubber lizards and stuffed animals, my husband and I still have time to make meals, read a paper or just sit back and enjoy watching them.

Don’t hold me to it, but I think we’re going to stick to “TV-free weekends” from now on.

10 Reasons Why I Work

I've been focusing lately much more on being a mom than furthering my career, but I had a good day at work today, I have a bright new assistant ready to start on Monday, and I bought a new sleeveless sweater and skirt to help beat the oppressive NY heat, so I'm in a good mood. Herewith, my manifesto on why I, a mother who adores her children to the point of distraction, still disentagles herself from them each morning, takes the LIRR and heads to Manhattan to work.

1. It engages my intellectual curiosity in a way that "Arty the Smarty" never could - yet, paradoxically, I'm the living embodiment of the fish who swam "this way" when all the other fish swam "that way" and who wanted, more than anything in life, to "make a big splash." I was a little girl who grew up in the 1970s dreaming of making an impact on the world much more than I ever dreamed of being a mother. Being the head of a department in a field I never even went to school for, and thriving in this new profession, is enormously, gargantually satisfying.

2. Stroke me, stroke me. I don't know about you, but sometimes all I get at home is whining from my children, criticism from my husband, and a seemingly endless pile of dishes in the sink. On those days, a simple compliment from my boss or successfully completing a long-term project can send me into the stratosphere. And if I get at least 5 of my 10 to-do items crossed off my Franklin Covey planner, it's heaven on a stick. Today was one of those days.

3. I like meeting new people and forging better relationships with the ones I already know. Marketing is like breathing to me. I'm getting paid to do something I already do - to some degree- naturally. Can't beat that.

4. It's empowerin, and OK, even fun -- to have a budget. I take referral sources out to cool new restaurants, I hire professional designers, I use my creativity to dream up events that will help bring more recognition and more clients to the firm. I make important decisions, back them up with ROI, and make a real impact on a $40 million professional services firm.

5. A room of my own. I live in a small house and with a husband, two kids and my aging Dad living in the basement, privacy is not an option. Looking out over 5th Avenue from my small, but private, office, offers me a sanctuary where I can think, create, and recharge my batteries.

6. I like to earn money. There - I said it. I am not the kind of woman who would do well on a spousal allowance - no matter how generous. I like working hard and getting that pay stub to show that what I did that week was worth something tangible to somebody.

7. My children. Although there are days when I think that staying home with them all day seems like a wonderful existence, the truth is that they will ultimately benefit from me having a job. I will never be one of those women whose children grow up, leave home, and then go through the crisis of "Who am I and what do I do now that I don't have young children to care for?" A working mother of teenagers once told me that her children appreciated that she clipped stories for them out of the Wall Street Journal when she read something that related to a school project they were working on, and how proud they were that their mother did something important in the world besides raising them.

8. It's genetic. My mother worked and it showed me a side of her and helped me appreciate her in a way that I would never have known (and that perhaps she never would have, either) if she didn't leave the house each day. I actually have fond memories of going to a babysitter in the morning before kindergarten and getting away with eating sugar on my Cheerios (something my mother would have forb idden at home). I also loved going to the classroom where she taught and being fussed over by her students, who adored her.

9. Life is too short. If I had 120 years to live, perhaps I would have stayed home with my girls for 15 years and then pursued a career. But time is something you never get back. And yes, I know that at the end of my life, making a difference in my daughters' lives will probably mean more to me than anything I accomplished at work, but I have an overwhelming need to do it all, and I just can't sublimate one portion of my personality. It keeps me from resenting motherhood, or work, and I think that's a good thing.

10. It just feels right. When you come down to it, we all need to go with our guts - whether it's about working outside of the home, letting your babies cry it out to sleep (couldn't do it), buying the red shirt or the blue one. We all forge the paths of our lives with each small and large decision we make, and they all add up in the end to who we are becoming and will ultimately become. I like who I am today, and I'm convinced that being a working mother is the right path for me. It isn't always thrilling, it has its definite drawbacks, but in the end - it just feels right, so I do it.