HERE & NOW How Not To Raise A Vidiot

His bottom parked in a tiny yellow director’s chair, chubby hands gripping a tattered blanket, my two-and-a-half-year-old son sits in the den about three feet from the television. giggling gleefully. What’s so hysterical, it seems, are the “heffa-lumps” and “woozles” determined to steal Winnie-the-Pooh’s honey, and Piglet flying in the air, nailed to earth only by the unraveling muffler in Pooh’s hands. It’s the story of “The Blustery Day,” as told on a twenty-four-minute videotape by Walt Disney, which I first rented on a cold, wintry morning. I had a good excuse; expecting my second child, I was as sick as a dog and wanted something, anything, that would entertain my little darling while I caught even a half-hour’s nap on the couch. 1 wasn’t prepared for what happened.

Until this point. Eric was not a TV baby. I never watch television during the day and neither does his sitter, who comes in the afternoon. My husband and I had decided, even before Eric was born, that we didn’t want to raise a “vidiot,” a television junkie who would grow fat and stupid through hours of sitting numbly before the boob tube. We agreed that today’s cartoons are mindless and poorly done, geared only toward fueling endless demands for toys. (A friend had told me of her youngster’s obsession with “Masters of the Universe.” which made him wild to possess every action figure related to the cartoon adventures of He-Man and She-Ra. Once, attempting to persuade his father to forsake a golf tournament on television and watch cartoons with him, he hauled out the big guns: “Dad. come see the great bod on He-Man’s girlfriend!”)

Based on this evidence, and the statistics that show that by the time the average American child reaches eighteen he has seen 18.000 TV murders, Peter and I decided that if our son ever saw any TV, it would be a symphony broadcast or a special on the life cycle of the Canary Islands newt. (This, . granted, came from two adults raised on “Underdog.” “Gilligan’s Island,” and “The Beverly Hillbillies.” But somehow, we had managed to avoid pickled brains.) When Eric turned two, 1 occasionally turned on “Sesame Street” and “Captain Kangaroo,” figuring anything on PBS had to be relatively harmless and probably educational. He was mildly interested, but as often as not, would turn off the television before the show ended in favor of doing something with mommy. I admit this made me feel somewhat smug. , This mommy and baby would read, play games, do arts and crafts, and all the other little things that fit life at a toddler’s pace. No electronic babysitter for us.

But when I got pregnant the second time, there were moments in the day when I just wanted a time out. A nap. A few minutes away from the endless energy of a toddler1 who no longer seemed to need daytime; sleep. Small children do not take kindly to being told, “I’m exhausted; can you play alone for a little while?” Innocent (and nauseated), I tried this tactic. It worked for five minutes. Then Eric began bringing all his toys to the den, dumping them on my supine form as, I lay on the couch. The message was clear.

So, on a drizzly day when morning sickness seemed to have moved in to stay, we went to the video section of the nearby grocery store. Desperate, I figured there had to be something that would grab a child’s attention for thirty minutes. In the children’s section, I asked Eric which movie he would like to see. He turned and walked across the aisle straight to a garish box titled ’”Red Skull”; I countered with “Pinocchio” He grabbed George Romero’s “Night Of The Living Dead”; I wrested the vile box from his hands and whipped out Pooh. Ahhhh. His face lit up. We had spent hours reading about A. A. Milne’s menagerie, with mommy supplying suitably silly voices.

Twenty-four hours later, when it was time to return the movie, Eric had watched “The Blustery Day’-literally-fifteen times. I watched it. blissfully reclining, the first few times. Several showings later, gripped by guilt, I suggested another activity and was quickly rebuffed. Eric was mesmerized. Each time, he laughed uproariously at the same lines and antics. Over and over and over. Bedtime came and there was a tussle. “One more time,” he said, coyly holding up a single finger. First thing the next morning, bottle of milk in hand, he parked in front of the TV. “1 want to see Pooh,” he said.

It had worked too well. Now, I couldn’t pry the tyke from the tube with a crowbar. He ate breakfast in front of the television, his face shining and laughing. In a lull, as he was helping the babysitter with the laundry (a major deal; he gets to put in the soap and fabric softener), I took the movie back with a mixture of relief and trepidation. Surely he would forget in a day or so.

He didn’t. Every day for the next week, he would ask, “Where is my Winnie-the-Pooh movie?” I would explain the nature of the rental agreements. He would look at me very sweetly but seriously and say, “You go get it back.” No temper tantrum, just simple, to the point, and completely intractable. After seven days of looking at those big blue eyes dreaming of Pooh, I melted. Obviously, we had gone beyond renting. After scouting four video stores, I found the prized tape. I paid the clerk $16.08, and Eric strode out of the store, triumphantly holding his movie, a look of pure pleasure on his face.

Now, he watches Pooh at least twice a day. I eventually added a Bugs Bunny cartoon and two Sesame Street videos-’Learning About Letters” and “Learning About Numbers.” The variety is for my sake, not his, but he rotates the educational films in occasionally. All in all, it’s pretty good stuff. (Catch Lena Horne’s terrific version of the “ABC” song on “Learning About Letters.11) Eric can turn on the television and VCR, push play, stop, rewind, and eject in the proper sequence. I hope he figures out how to set the recording timer soon. We’ve had that VCR three years and I’ve yet to master it.

But I admit it, I’m worried. My husband is positively apoplectic, convinced that his little genius is on his way to becoming a card-carrying couch potato, juvenile division. If Eric is a Pooh junkie at two, what happens when he hits twelve? Sure, kids growing up in the Fifties and Sixties watched a lot of TV. But there was a difference. We couldn’t watch it around the clock. Thirty minutes of “F Troop” or “The Rat Patrol” and it was over. Time to do something else. Our kids pop in another tape.

We are not the only parents facing the VCR dilemma. I hear the same story from every parent I know. (They all bought one after their first child was born, realizing it was their only hope of ever seeing a relatively new movie until the kid was seventeen.) Their preschoolers figure the equipment out in a flash and, with the help of doting grandparents, compile their own videotape libraries. Our personal adult film library consists of one blank tape, the Jane Fonda Workout, and a somewhat blurry video of Eric’s second birthday, courtesy of a friend’s Camcorder.



That brings me to the next problem. How do parents know which tapes to get their children? If Eric’s going to watch TV, I want it to have some redeeming value. Milne and Sesame Street have my vote; the Pooh tape won an Academy Award for best short feature, and though we had been working on the ABC’s and counting. Big Bird and the gang definitely accelerated the process. But the Bugs Bunny cartoon I bought for $4.98 is decidedly marginal. (This cartoon is so old it has Bugs screech, “It ain’t Wendell Willkie!”) One rental tape that promised to be a surefire success-containing Dr. Seuss’s “The Grinch Grinches The Cat In The Hat” and “Pontoffel Pock’-didn’t match the creativity of the Seuss books. And some so-called children’s films are simply too confusing for a preschooler. I’m sorry, but the “Wizard of Oz” is scary, with those creepy flying monkeys.

Sure, you can sample tapes by renting them, but you have to be prepared for the possibility that your child has no taste and will fall in love with the most obnoxious drivel, then make your life miserable by playing it over and over. And then-this is guaranteed- you will end up muttering songs from Strawberry Shortcake’s latest adventure under your breath on the elevator at LTV Center.

So I’ve given in, but I’ve not given up. I’ve got a threefold game plan to prevent vidiot-itus: exploit the library’s book-related tapes, purchase tapes of original cartoons (while staying away from the adapted stuff until he’s older), and stock up on old movies, like the Marx Brothers. He may still be a couch potato, but at least he’ll be a couch potato with culture.

Still, I know that whatever I do, I cannot protect my child completely from the evil ogre that is network television. I realized this one day while ejecting a tape. I flipped the dial and found “Wheel of Fortune.” I watched long enough to figure out the phrase, then tried to change the station. Eric wouldn’t let me; he loved it, even though he repeatedly asked me, “What are they doing?” I panicked. Vanna and Pat seem harmless, but all TV addicts know they lead to the hard stuff: silly sitcoms where all kids are smart and parents are stupid; the mini-series with titles like “Mom Had A Sex-Change Operation.”

It’s inevitable that Eric will watch TV. Andthough I plan to exercise firm control overwhat he watches. I don’t know that I’d really want to completely insulate him from it.After all, television has become part of eachgeneration’s shared experience. People myage can conjure up certain memories basedon two words: Mister Ed. Other names-Bullwinkle, The Professor. Spock, LauraPetrie. Archie-all tell me something abouthow and when I grew up. I want my childrento have that generational experience. I justdon’t want to have to hear them say, “Boy,that She-Ra’s got some bod!”