Here’s this week’s Smartmom from the Brooklyn Papers
Smartmom almost fell over last month when Hepcat suggested they buy a new television. “There’s a big sale at Best Buy,” he said. “And 32-inch LCD flat screens are the sweet spot.”
Hepcat loves a new-fangled electronic toy and he was intrigued by the new flat-screen high-definition television sets.
But 32 inches? And this from the mild-mannered guy who, in a moment of acute exasperation, pulled the power cord of their old television and locked the set in the basement.
That was in 1999 and the TV-free life lasted for almost five years. Hepcat was sick and tired of the way his children turned into Zombies in front of the set. He hated the noise, the shows and, most of all, the wasted time,
In an instant, the television disappeared and Elaine, Jerry, George and Kramer were no longer nightly dinner guests.
The Teletubbies, Arthur, Barney, Marge, Homer, Lisa, and Bart, were also banished from the living room.
Smartmom, the daughter of an advertising copywriter who created the Quisp and Quake cereal commercials back in the 1970s (among other gems), wasn’t as anti-television as Hepcat. But, she went along with it because, well, everyone knows that less is more when it comes to television in the People’s Republic of Park Slope.
Still, there’s a downside to not having a TV. The idiot box is great for behavior modification. It can be a motivator: “When you finish your homework, you can watch Sailor Moon!” and a punishment: “No Drew Carey for a week!”
And as even many Park Slope parents know, the box also makes a terrific babysitter. Parking the two-year-old Oh So Feisty One in front of the cathode ray tube made it possible for Smartmom to boil the pasta, answer emails, and read her latest issue of The Brooklyn Papers (and the New Yorker, admittedly).
Sure, the apartment was quieter and less chaotic without the tube. Teen Spirit and OSFO were more physically active; time was no longer measured in half-hour and one-hour segments; and getting out of the house, getting them to do their homework and making dinner was a breeze.
But Smartmom couldn’t get anything done. Without her TV, OSFO became “Saran Wrap Girl,” clinging to mommy, mommy, mommy all the time.
It didn’t take long before she and Teen Spirit figured out how to adjust to life without the TV. It was actually eerie: One minute they couldn’t live without it, the next it was out of sight, out of mind.
But it was a myth: Smartmom discovered that her tots were merely slipping downstairs to Mrs. Kravitz’s apartment for their daily dose of the “Power Puff Girls” or “Seinfeld.”
Of course, they weren’t the only ones who missed television. Smartmom pined for her midnight liaisons with Charlie Rose (me-OW!) and Thursday night sob sessions during “ER.” From Diaper Diva she heard all about great shows she was missing like “Sex & the City,” “Six Feet Under” and “The Sopranos,” and had to settle for blow-by-blow retellings by her sis.
Then again, Smartmom did enjoy the moral high ground: “We don’t watch television,” she’d self-righteously tell people. That spelled a kind of disciplined parental style that, Smartmom figured, spoke volumes about her mothering capabilities.
Take it from Smartmom, it gets you a 10 in the Mommy Olympics. And it was a full 360-degree turn from her own television-drenched childhood.
Smartmom’s childhood memories are indistinguishable from Kukla, Fran and Ollie, Captain Kangaroo and Soupy Sales. She was even a contestant on “Wonderama” with Sonny Fox. Later, there was “All in the Family,” the “Mary Tyler Moore Show,” and “Upstairs Downstairs.”
During high school, she and her pals would gather at someone’s apartment in time to catch the “Not-Ready-for Prime-Time Players” live from New York on Saturday night.
Current events happened right in the family’s Riverside Drive living room. When JFK was assassinated, her family’s black-and-white tube glowed non-stop for days.
In 1968, the sit-com Smartmom and Diaper Diva were watching was interrupted with an announcement bearing the unfathomable news of Martin Luther King’s murder in Memphis. And later, she remembers seeing Bobby Kennedy dying on the kitchen floor of the Ambassador Hotel.
In July, 1969, her family, along with the rest of the world, watched as Neil Armstrong took that giant leap for mankind. How strange it was to see the surface of the moon on the TV set and the moon in the sky outside their window.
While Smartmom was willing to give her kids the TV-free life, there were some shows she refused to miss: What about the Oscars, the presidential debates, the World Series?
For these television happenings, Hepcat would be summoned to lug the television up three flights from the basement. After these television feasts, Hepcat insisted on returning the box to its home in the basement before dawn.
On Sept. 11, 2001, it was a mixed blessing not having a television. It meant that OSFO and Teen Spirit didn’t have to see the traumatic images of the towers falling over and over again.
But the family did spent much of the days that followed in Mrs. Kravitz’s living room waiting nervously for news of what was happening and dreading what was going to happen next.
After that, Smartmom knew that it might be a good idea to get a TV. Although she was comfortable getting most of her news from Satirius Johnson, the intelligent newscaster on WNYC, she thought that in a national emergency a television might come in handy.
A year ago, they brought the television upstairs from the basement to watch Jon Stewart on the Oscars and it never went back down again because Hepcat’s rotator cuff was hurting and he didn’t want to strain it.
At first, the television just sat there like an unwanted guest. But soon, Teen Spirit and OSFO started watching “Seinfeld,” “the Simpsons,” and even “Friends” again.
Eventually, Smartmom and OSFO moved to “The O.C.” Teen Spirit met “House.” And Hepcat got “Lost.”
Smartmom realized that there’s nothing cozier than sitting around the television hearth with her family and watching a good television show.
On the other hand, there’s nothing worse than crappy TV and too many commercials. Don’t tell anyone, but last spring, Smartmom, Teen Spirit and OSFO became addicted to “American Idol.” Ace, Bucky, Kellie Pickler and Taylor Hicks were like crack to their delicate sensibilities. Luckily, the family is now attending TA, a 12-step program at a local church for those unable to drag themselves away from brain-numbing TV shows.
Yet last week, the monster television arrived in an enormous box. Smartmom worried that it was going to devour the living room and her family. She wasn’t sure she liked her new identity as the kind of person who owns a 32-inch television.
As Smartmom watched her organic brownie points, moral superiority and Park Slope values fly right out the window, she lay down on the couch with the new remote control and watched whatever was on in all of its high-def glory.
For a few days, even Hepcat seemed to enjoy the techno-geek aspect of his new digital toy. Teen Spirit worried that they’d spent too much money on something so “stupid.” OSFO was just glad for the bigger, bolder images of Summer, Taylor, and Seth on “The O.C.”
As expected, after a few days, the television started to get to Hepcat, who coveted the big TV in the first place.
“I can’t stand that noisy piece of furniture that makes my children catatonic,” he said.
Smartmom hopes Daddy won’t take the T-bird away again.
If this family can just limit itself to shows that are well written, smart and only sometimes completely stupid, everything should be all right.