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Lindsay Metcalf
on Jun 19 2013 - 06:00 AM
My top five most important moments of the summer so far
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mara williams
on Jun 18 2013 - 06:00 AM
Hey, manchild, mama says: clean your room, wash the dishes, don't drink and drive.
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Emily Parnell
on Jun 16 2013 - 06:00 AM
Eating fresh, local produce is good for body and soul
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Jim Cosgrove
on Jun 13 2013 - 06:00 AM
I just want to buy some pants. Please, turn down the music.
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- mr. stinky feet - Profile | Pictures | Blog
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It’s a bad idea to watch TV while you’re eating a meal with your family. My mother (who liked to call our TV the “idiot box”) lived by this wise advice, and it’s an obvious matter of practice in our home. In fact, we hardly watch television at all, and certainly not at mealtime. It’s not only distracting, it’s bad for digestion.
But our eyes and ears are bombarded with it when we travel. We’ve spent dozens of days on the road this year as a family. And it never fails that in every hotel breakfast room we find a blaring TV tuned into a program featuring lots of shouting that is pawned off as “news.”
Burning buildings, murder, war, natural disasters, and weeping victims followed by snarky, red-faced pundits editorializing about politics and marital infidelity. Hey, I’m no prude. I’m a former journalist who appreciates real news, but no one needs the smell of sensationalism in the morning – especially before the coffee has kicked in.
I try to live by this simple unspoken rule: “No fear-mongering before noon.”
One morning, my five-year-old daughter and I arrived in the hotel lobby for breakfast just in time to see the flat-screen image of grieving parents of a girl who was snatched from her front yard. Lyda asked, “Daddy, what does ‘abduction’ mean?”
That was the final straw. I walked over and switched the TV off. It felt so liberating! Now, I regularly turn the sound down or mute it or shut the whole thing off if we’re the only ones in the room.
At a hotel in Colorado, I couldn’t find the remote, so I went to the front desk and asked the manager to lower the volume. He walked into the room and asked incredulously, “This is too loud?”
“Yes,” I shouted over the full-throated rant bellowing from the television. “And I’m not big on watching spittle fly while I eat breakfast.”
In another hotel we saw the NCAA Women’s calf-roping championships over breakfast. Who knew that was even a collegiate sport worth televising? Oh yeah, it isn’t. That’s why they show it at 8:15 on a Tuesday morning.
It’s not just the hotel breakfast rooms, either. Nearly every restaurant in the country has at least one television perched high on the wall within view from every table. I’ve attempted to position my kids away from the sight of the screen, but many eateries have them on every wall. And they’re usually showing some inane “sports” events featuring a guy pulling a pick-up truck with his teeth or skater dudes or scantily-clad sand volleyball players. I admit, it’s difficult not watch sometimes.
And forget about conversing with your family. “Huh? I’m sorry, did you say something? I was distracted by the NASCAR pileup.” Isn’t conversation part of the reason you go out to eat with someone?
You can’t even escape it in the solitude of the bathroom. At a Mexican restaurant in Oklahoma, they had tiny flat screens installed above the urinals in the men’s room. Come on! Have we all become so dependent on being tuned-in, that a guy can’t just pee in peace?
Please, for the preservation of my sanity and the good of my family’s digestion, turn off all the idiot boxes!
Thank you thank you thank you!!!! If it weren't for TCM, I probably wouldn't even OWN a television. It stresses me out to see the TV on in an empty room, and falling asleep with it on is just lunacy. I really, truly wish that Time Warner Cable would sell its channels a la carte. I would save a boatload of money and I wouldn't have to surf through 79 channels to find one program worth watching. >:-(Can I get an amen?! LOVED this blog! Granted, I never really noticed what was on in hotel breakfast areas, b/c I'm the only one in the family who can manage to get up early enough to make the free breakfast, and I spend my entire time loading up plates and taking them up to the room full of sleeping Brown kids. But I will admit that the restaurants with TVs all over the place, all tuned to some different sporting event, just bugs me. We don't allow TV during dinner time over here, either. I hate the noise.My kids don't watch TV, ever. No Dora, no Disney, nothing. My minivan came with a DVD player, my kids don't know what it is. My kids are preschool age and younger. Many parents look at me like I'm crazy whenever this comes up. Perhaps I've made life a little harder on myself but I feel like it's worth it. They never ask to watch TV because they don't know about it. They love music, their favorites are the blues and reggae programs on NPR. They've never "been bored". They entertain themselves and each other just fine, no TV necessary.
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