Would You Please Take Off That Hat

SO WHAT, exactly, did parents do with their children before television?

People have been having kids for a long time, so I know it must have been something. I just don't know what. By the way, when it comes to permissive over-telefication--That's probably not a word, but it sounds like one, doesn't it?--I think my wife and I are in one of the stricter factions.

We never allow it on in the background, like Muzak. That's firm. You do one thing at a time in this house, I say to our kids, which suits their natures anyway, because we have boys, and boys grow into men, and men, as everyone knows, are perfectly incapable of doing two or more things at once, unless you count sexual fantasies as one of the two.

Women, of course, are capable of doing many vital tasks at the same time, which all earthlings took as a given until modern, western civilization began merrily insisting all of us are the same. Many times, growing up, I remember my mother saying, "Your father takes care of the big things in life, like, are the planets still circling the sun. I take care of the little things, like, is the house on fire, or is anyone bleeding."

Anyway, we never, ever leave the TV on as Muzak (which, by the way, is another thing I hate). Who ever decided we all need constant music to fill the background of our lives? Is it supposed to calm us down? If that's the case, I don't think it's working. It's getting worse, too. What in the world is the point of having CNN in a hotel elevator? We all have bumper-sticker attention-spans, but this is ridiculous. Somehow America has gone from, "You give us 22 minutes, and we'll give you the world" (which is bad enough), to "You give us the ride from the health club back to your room floor, and we'll give you a pointless intrusion."

We don't allow video games in our house, either. I know that's like telling the alcoholic, "Okay, anything in the bar, just no gin." But we don't do video games. Also, we don't allow those kid "Survivor" shows, or the kid "Real World" shows, or anything where the bald junior high principal allows himself to be slimed in a fruitless effort to look like a good sport. As Patton said, "I don't want these boys to like me, I want them to listen to me." Of course, the next thing he probably said was, "Okay, one more 'Sponge Bob'." (Now that I think of it, I've been in several movies as the bald junior high principal who gets slimed. Hmm. I'll have to revisit the thinking on that some day.)

By the way, in my opinion, "Sponge Bob SquarePants" is one of the best and funniest cartoons ever, and good cartoons are great for my kids and great for me. I think "Sponge Bob" is as good as the old Warner Brothers and "Popeye"--the best stuff ever.

Sports are okay, but I must admit I'm not crazy about some of those racy beer commercials. They show too much for the boys, and not enough for me.

And I'm dying to get them into watching old movies, anything in black and white, but that whole effort whipped around and hit me in the head about a year ago.

My wife was out shopping, and I brought dinner downstairs so the kids could eat in front of the TV, which I only allow sparingly; never more than, say, every single day. Between cartoons, I flipped onto one of the old movie channels and instantly recognized the last five minutes of "Dr. Strangelove," the part where Slim Pickens is about to leave the cockpit of his B-52 and rodeo-ride that bomb down to oblivion. I immediately went to change the channel and the older one screamed, "No, Daddy, leave it, it's an airplane." I started to try to explain, but the little one yelled, "Airplane!" and they both picked up the chant, "Airplane, airplane, airplane . . ." So I thought, ah, the heck with it, just as the garage door opened and my wife entered with six bags in each hand and one in her teeth, sweating like Papillon. She saw what was on and gave me that look even Martians would recognize as, "What are you, an idiot?" I shrugged helplessly, which is my favorite response to friction in marriage, and the kids cheered as the world blew up, bomb after bomb. They have since asked to see "the bomb-bay-door movie" at least a hundred times. There's probably a lesson in that, but I'm pretty sure I don't know what it is.

What else can they watch? No news, no talk shows, no "reality." I'm a big believer in maintaining the innocence of children until puberty, or the next time the family drives past a Calvin Klein billboard. No nudity, no cursing, nothing unduly Satanic--And if you think that goes without saying, you haven't seen the number of parents who blithely take their 3-year-olds to see "The Cell."