Well, technically, I do have a tv, but I don’t have cable, so I really only get one or two channels. (PAX and PBS, the epitome of stellar programming.)
Ironically, our tv got great reception the day of the attack, and since then it has gone back to its normal fuzzy, incomprehensible self. And to tell you the truth, I’m glad. If we had decent reception, I know I wouldn’t be able to tear myself away, and I would sit and cry all day. Every day, no matter how many times I saw the same footage and heard the same numbers. And if that happened, I’d end up neglecting my home and by default, my kids.
Am I selfish? I am horrified and heartbroken about what happened, and terrified about what may come next. But at the same time, I think it can’t be healthy to be inundated with repetitive images of horror–not good for me as an adult, and certainly not good for my 4 kids. I don’t want to be overly sheltering, but I also have to remember that a 5th grader and a high schooler watching this coverage are going to experience an even worse sense of helplessness than we adults do. At least we can donate blood. If you’re 11 years old, all you can do is lie awake and night worrying if something is going to happen to your parents or your school, etc.
Is anyone else out there keeping the tv off? I am reading the boards here and checking the internet for news, but I haven’t seen any real tv coverage since 9/11.
I don’t know about selfish, but I’ve got a co-worker with no TV and she’s always bragging about it, like she was a Litterati. Only she just reads Harlequin romances.
You seem to have a TV of sorts, though, so I’m guessing you aren’t stuck up about it.
Hi Bodypoet. I don’t have a working TV either. A picture tube blew sometime back in early August and I’ve just never bothered to buy a new one. And I’m glad.
I doubt I will learn anything of any further importance from the TV. I have a working radio, the comment boards, the internet itself and a good network of friends in a lot of different countries. I don’t want to hear rumours, I don’t want to hear speculation, I definitely, absolutely, do not want to see any pictures of the first plane hitting the first tower.
I don’t think you are selfish. If you were, you would be doing the aforementioned neglect. Have you talked with your kids about this? How do they feel? I’ve been wondering if maybe young kids don’t really comprehend the seriousness of this.
Nah, no profound “Oh, we spend our family time playing educational vocabulary games” BS here.
I just can’t afford cable. All those kids to feed, y’know. Plus, I noticed now much nicer they are when the cable is disconnected. I do have it turned on sometimes for the summer, though, so I can watch Law & Order reruns.
[/hijack]
~k
I’ve talked to the older ones, xcheopis. They’re 15 and 11. The 15 year old now wants to join the Marines. :eek: Of course my response is something along the lines of, “My baaaby!”. The 11 year old is the one I would worry about, as he tends to become very depressed and helpless-feeling when faced with something this overwhelming. I just keep stressing that it’s okay to be worried and scared, but that We Grownups will do our best to make the right decisions, and that the best way he and I can help right now is to take care of ourselves and our families.
The other two are babies–8 months and 2 1/2, so they don’t know what’s up at all. Thank goodnes. They are keeping my grounded and focused now, and are constant reminders that I can’t afford to curl up in a corner somewhere, at least not for more than 3 minutes.
~karol
Well, you sure don’t sound selfish to me; you sound like a good parent doing the very best she (I’m presuming here)can under extraordinarily trying circumstances.
So, then, the answer to your questions is, “No. You are not selfish.” with the addendum that you seem to be doing a great job with your kids.
(If I had a 15 year old, I’d either have marched him/her down to a recruiting office and lied about his/her age or set up a ruckus that would deafen a howler monkey. I don’t have kids so I’ve no idea which of those two scenarios would occur.)
I am almost envious of you in this situation. I’m a bit of a TV addict. Just ask my wife. I’ll watch almost anything that lets me keep my brain in neutral when I get home from work. This past week that his been impossible. I think most of the American public is suffering from a type of emotional overload. We’ve seen the same emotionally charged well-edited shots repeatedly. It’s left me feeling something that borders on clinical depression. Other’s I work with feel the same.
You’ve avoided this morbid fascination the broadcast media has with pressing a bruise and its ensuing emotional effects.
It’s not selfish at all. Rather I haven’t been watching much tv myself (though not just because of what is happening. I too have peasant vision but I also don’t want to watch most of what is on it or have the time.) About the only thing I catch is the updates on our news during supper as my Grandparents always watch it and I can’t avoid it. Otherwise I probably wouldn’t watch any at all. I get enough info from papers and the net.
I never turned on the TV at all for at least 48 hours after the crashes happened, and I’m still avoiding televised news. I saw no need to be inundated by terrifying images when the ones in my head were bad enough. I have followed what’s going on via message boards (snopes before it went down, now this one and Fortean Times - don’t laugh, please) and internet news sources. It’s now relatively safe to turn on the TV in search of fiction, but I still prefer to view the news of the day through the filter of newspapers and the Internet.
Selfish? Nah. I haven’t watched television since 1992 and don’t miss it a bit. Never saw Seinfeld, haven’t watched Friends or Survivor or Who Wants To Be A Millionaire… Nope, don’t miss it. I do own a television/VCR and rent video tapes occasionally, mostly during the winter, but as far as broadcast or cable - Who needs it? I’m not prone to brag about not watching television either. It’s simply a personal choice.
We moved to a rural area about 4 months ago. The TV is still in the basement, and not hooked up. That’s right, I have not watched one iota of TV for 4 months. I didn’t realize what a stupid and time-wasting device it was until a few weeks after we moved in. I also believe it has improved my attitude. I do NOT miss it.
Oops, retraction to above post… I did see the WTC thing on our TV here in the lab. I’m still recovering… not from the WTC collapse, but from staring at a !@#$% TV again.
We’ve been going on about two years now, since the last one blew. But I work at a newspaper and we get tons of magazines, and the Internet, so that fills in the gaps.
But we’re backslidering. As soon as we can afford it, we’re getting a big honkin’ HDTV set that will live in the basement and play movies (the wife and I really miss seeing movies the nights I’m off). I don’t know if we’re getting cable, though. Prices going up and nothin’ on that I’d want to watch.
Sometimes during news events like this I regret not having a TV. During the election I was practically frothing at the mouth–I want live video feeds, dammit! Soundbites! Talking heads!
But not this time. I don’t care if I’m sheltering myself. I don’t want to see it. The still pictures online & in the papers and the weeping voices on the radio are bad enough.
On 9/11 I watched the video of the second crash, once, at cnn.com. Yesterday I got morbidly curious and watched some of the video clips at abc.com and spent the afternoon crying.
Maybe I’m just oversensitive. I’m enough of a nervous wreck as it is; if I had a television I’m sure that I’d’ve completely broken down. For the sake of my own sanity, I just can’t let myself watch all this horror on TV.
We haven’t had TV since January of this year, and I’ve loved it. I did watch on the day of the attack (I was babysitting) and a few bits and pieces here and there, but mostly I’ve been listening to NPR, which is all the news, none of the glurge.
I don’t think it’s selfish at all. I was actually about to get cable back again for football season, but I think I’ll hold off for another week or so. I can’t stand the immersion of information on right now.
