Wednesday, May 5, 2010

"Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other." -Ann Landers

I personally find this to be particularly true in my relationship. When we were younger, before the mind-dulling fulltime jobs and other draining responsibilities of adult life, both Bryan and I filled our time with meaningful activities such as writing poems, playing musical instruments, skateboarding, playing sports, scrapbooking, etc. Now when we have free time we usually ask ourselves whether we want a movie or a rerun.

For the past few years, these activities have depressed me and made me miserable. I feel like we both lost who we were and part of what we so deeply loved about eachother(along with any shape/figure and talents we used to have). Now that we're turning the corner and plummeting toward our wedding day, I'm so much more concerned! If this is what we're like at 24 with little reponsibility, what will we be like in 10 years with the same responsibilities and likely having multiple children in school? I can't bear to imagine it...

On the other side - Bryan misses his old hobbies, but he's still 100% content with watching TV and movies all day. He LOVES it. Half as a joke/half ready to jump on it if he did agree(1% chance of that...), I told him yesterday that I thought the TV was evil and I wanted to get rid of it. His reaction was expected... He wouldn't even consider the notion.

What happened next was to MY surprise. After I got home, we ate dinner, gave Marsha her cake, and sat down on the couch to watch them eat it. On the weekend when Bryan is at work, I will literally go ALL day without having the TV on, and the second he walks in, he goes straight for the remote. Well, last night he didn't. Thanks to that, he ended up doing some dishes and we took the girls on a walk to burn off some of their cake. Small change, but a change nontheless!

This morning when I made my daily call to let him know I was on my way to work, I made it a point to bring up last night and how much I loved it as well as to see how he felt about it. He decided that I was right and suggested a rule that the TV doesn't come on until 9 o'clock! I can't say that it will definitely stick for very long, but here's to giving it a hell of a try!

4 comments:

barbie said...

that's awesome! I'm sure the weather and the longer days will help keep the tv as well.

Kevin and I often talk about canceling our cable all together, but I don't know if we ever will.

To my surprise I find myself watching very little, if any, television during my time home with the children.

Alicia Kennedy said...

As we've discussed, I NEVER turn the TV when I'm at home. I can think of about three times that I turned it on and Jude and I specifically watched a movie. That's about it.

The TV even played a role in wanting the toy room - so if we're in there, the TV's not on. Jude gets 100% of our attention.

Ryan and I made a similar rule not very long ago where we said the TV won't come on until Jude is asleep. We really stuck to it for a while and then it started to fall off a bit. But, it helped change habits and it only comes on now for certain shows, etc.

Instead of TV, we listen to the radio...

Katy said...

Yes! Exactly, ladies! I always tell Bry that it would be a waste to have cable if we didn't get it for free... But I'm sure we'd have it... and that's what I'll do too, Alicia. I'll have the radio on while at least trying to be productive with something. I'm also sure ours won't stick 100% but I ust want it to make us say "what do you want to do" and consider other options instead of going to the TV everynight. We love movies and have a few shows we frequent, but Bryan wil search for something to watch and we'll end up rewatchig a mundane movie that we agreed wasn't very good the first time we saw it. I'm completely SICK of it!

Alicia said...

A few months back when we made our dining room I couldn't believe what a tremendous difference it made to have us all eat there together as a family instead of huddled around the T.V. in me and Spencer's bedroom. Spencer and I make plenty of time to talk, but we realized how much more we learned about Mary by just sharing a meal with her around a table instead of in front of the T.V. where the only chance you get to talk is at commercial, and by the time dinner is over, it's bedtime.

We never made any rules, but something that works nicely in our family is for us to have one night a week (Tuesdays - I work late, and there's a marathon of the Office on TBS) where the kids eat and go to bed first, and we lounge in front of the T.V. with our dinner. Every other night, we eat together. That way, eating without the T.V. seems like less of a chore b/c we still get to on the best night for it.