Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Oh, boy. One of the things I learned on vacation is that my kids don’t have any idea what a commercial is on TV. Now, it’s not that we don’t watch TV, but we don’t have cable or anything like that at home. We watch movies we get from the library, Netflix, Hulu and Redbox. I’m not going to make pretend that it is for any super righteous moral reason, we just don’t. The kids are always busy playing, my husband is at work and well, if I want to see something I cue up my laptop where ever I might be working in the house. Also, I’m not paying to have TV, in order for me to be a stay at home mom something needed to go and that was one of the expenses.
Now, back to the commercials-I had almost forgotten about them. The kids freaked out when they were watching the cartoon network and boom – a commercial came on TV. I almost didn’t know how to explain it to a 6 and 4 year old. First they were concerned because their show hadn’t finished, I tried explaining what TV commercials were and then the show came back on and it was forgotten.
I felt a moment of panic. Had I somehow made my child socially stunted? How could they not know? How could they know? My mind raced and then it happened, a commercial came on and the next thing I heard was, “Wow, I want that Iron Man mask!” The other boy says” No I want those cookies.” Which was followed by mommy, mommy, mommy can we get those.
My panic quickly passed and I felt lucky for not having to deal with anymore “I want or I need” then I already do without a TV. Some tell me that will change as they get older, but we’ll see. For now I’ll enjoy my kids ad free.