On Being "One of Those Christians Who Doesn't Have a TV"

A family diary, with help from Austen, Berry, Plato, and Larsson

“Meeting in Front of the TV”, Sašo Vrabič, 2018

I never imagined I would be “one of those Christians who doesn’t have a TV.” But, last summer, my wife and I decided that we didn’t want the television dominating our living room any longer. And so, up it went into the attic—not banished entirely, but reserved for special occasions when we could enjoy it with our three children—daughter N. (then 4), and our sons S. (then 2) and M. (then newborn). 

We made the decision whilst visiting our screen-lite in-laws in the countryside. I then decided to keep a diary, to chronicle the impact of such a momentous removal over the first few months. What follows are lightly edited extracts from the first couple of months of that diary.

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Friday 18th August 2023

First day back from visiting in-laws for 2 weeks—told kids TV is broken. Two weeks w/o it whilst we were away—all they watched was Muppets Treasure Island (once). But as soon as we said we were going home, S. asked about “watching.”

Initial heartbreak at the “broken” TV, especially from S.—calling loudly for Attenborough.

But then they got into playing, which they could do before—but they began to get things out which they hadn’t touched in weeks. Did their puzzles, happy for ages—together, which is the important thing.

Would have been an easy day to justify screen-time—post-holiday, tired, unpacking, kids ratty after leaving Grandma’s, L. miserable being back in the suburbs after the countryside. But kids were fine.

As for us: L. went to bed early; I held the baby and read Mansfield Park.

Sunday 20th August

Usual Sunday pre-church routine would be watching Attenborough/Brian Cox’s The Planets—wholesome, informative stuff. So today there was opposition to the “brokenness” of the TV—but not as much. Only taken 48 hours to reconcile themselves to its total unavailability. Energies + imaginations redirecting elsewhere. Puzzles still out; small-play games—toy animals, Sylvanian families, Playmobil—getting longer + more involved.

Spent afternoon in the garden—kids ended up next door getting pizza for dinner. Glorious “kids outside” day—paddling pools, trampolines, all sweat + sun cream. Coming in, S. asked for watching, but opposition folded quickly… + they found a little game to play. This is exactly the kind of time I’d normally assume they couldn’t play, lacking the energy + that they even deserve TV. And yet off they went, devising some little world for 15 minutes whilst I ran their bath.

As for the adults in the evening: rocking baby, pottering, listening to Jane Austen audiobooks. Strikes me as we do so that we are listening to stories set in times where evenings were, among other things, spent reading to each other aloud. We used to do that—before the children. I know of others—yes, the mad No-TV-Havers—who read to each other. Strange to imagine the evenings of Austen characters—they seem so empty, terrifyingly long; everyone sat around letter writing, or reading an improving book, occasionally chattering. Could they really put up with it all evening? Maybe they all just packed it in + went to bed at 8pm. Did you have to, to save candles/firewood/lamp oil? How have people spent their evenings for most of human history?

Another thing: is it OK to get rid of the TV but still listen to audiobooks, when we could read to each other? I baulk at the idea of robots caring for lonely old people in Japan, but how is that different from Rosamund Pike reading me Pride & Prejudice on Audible? + how is that different from the technology of print bringing me the words of someone absent? + here we are, bottoming out at Plato + his suspicion of writing over direct speech. Writing makes too much of itself, gets into everything—like Jerome K. Jerome says about cheese. Plato, Plato, it’s all in Plato.

Tuesday 22nd August 2023

Arrived on holiday. Told children the TV here is also broken. Late afternoon spent paddling on beach after we arrived, so no issue so far.

I actually got some novel reading time in the evening. Now very observant of how characters in Mansfield Park spend their quiet nights in.

Wednesday 23rd August 2023

Kids had hours on the beach this PM. Discovered that the little transparent jellyfish that wash up here only sting like a nettle when alive + not at all when dead. S. was FASCINATED. Spent a solid hour collecting “jellies” in a bucket. 

Once again, we got in and I thought they’d collapse and “need” TV—but they fell into some game or other with their toy trains.

Thursday 24th August 2023

Read Wendell Berry’s “Why I Won’t Buy A Computer” to L. tonight. Great text to read aloud—cutting yet warm; accommodating yet self-confident. It was that self-confidence I found most invigorating/fortifying. All + any technological refusal now is riddled with doubt—both the understandable and shamelessly self-serving kinds. But the soul is given some strong vittles by the odd Holy Fool who wanders past, not giving a monkey’s about anyone else, utterly convinced that they are right + others are wrong + that time won’t just prove it but already has. Yes, some of Berry’s stances seem extreme even in 1987—farming w/ horses, no electric light etc. But still.

I wonder if he has electric light now?

Friday 25th August 2023

Today, after beach, forewent TV again. N. shuffled off, tired, to look at a book—The Worst Witch, too old for her, but we’ve been reading it to her since picking it up from a charity book exchange in town. S. climbed up next to her in the big chair, asked “N. can you read me a story?” Broke my heart—+ she did. Talked him through the whole book, every illustration, even the bits we’ve not read to her yet.

Sunday 27th August 2023

L. woke me up at 5am—hysterical wreck. M. up since 2am, refusing to settle, gas again. Had only had 4 hours sleep myself, but had to take him. Knew I needed to just stay awake holding a newborn, keep him asleep as long as possible for L’s sake—meant having him on me + keeping him upright. Too exhausted to read + knew it would send me to sleep anyway, so opened my laptop and watched Seinfeld for 3 hours.

Is this permissible for a father aiming to create a TV-free (-lite?) home? Extenuating circumstances, surely? The aim was to save my wife from a mini-postpartum breakdown + to not drop/crush my newborn. One of the crimes of TV/screen distraction is that it consumes quality hours when you’re at your best, and could do healthy/productive things. But 5-8am this morning was not such a time.

Yet: what did people do before? Just have cot death? Was that a notable part of the infant mortality rate—parents falling asleep on the job b/c they couldn’t binge Seinfeld? Probably not: most, I imagine, just made it work. So were they all just more tired + miserable then? The main Q: am I making excuses when I deem TV “necessary” in my exhausted hours but not in my kids’?

Tuesday 29th August 2023

Went to beach late PM, not until 5:30—grey day, but kids in wet suits + had a great time for over an before bundling home in towels w/ promise of hot chocolate, all tired out. Once home, S. started asking for a movie. Honestly, I felt like a movie! But we didn’t. In the end S + N had fun playing together + w/ the baby.

Friday 1st September 2023

First day of autumn—still on holiday. Only TV for almost a month has been Muppets Treasure Island. This feels good + they are continually able to play well together at times I’d have assumed they couldn’t. Trying not to think too much about “normal” life resuming post-holiday. We need to run w/ this, chase this feeling, let the summer sabbatical teach us what “normal” can be.

Yet the baby is being v. difficult—sensitive little soul, struggles to sleep/feed if too much is going on, so L. is on her phone a lot., staving off boredom + sleep. Other two were much easier. Is this OK? Hard to say.

Is the whole “no TV” thing moot in the presence of the smartphone? Our TV has never even been connected to the aerial, b/c we set it up on the opposite wall from the cable. This was an anti-TV move of a kind—they had it wall mounted, dominating the room (like most houses in Chessington). Ours is in the corner. Hoped it would prevent the room from being oriented towards it. This worked somewhat—half our living room is open play space; but the other half, the seating, unavoidably slants TV-ward. Have read how modern homes are “hearthless”, the consumptive + isolating TV replacing the productive + communal old centre; other say every home has an altar, a natural centre for the household gods.

But even if you tear down the TV altar, is it irrelevant if smartphones move with you everywhere? Like high places popping up in Israel?

Monday 4th September 2023

Penultimate night of holiday. Have spent most evenings alone. Once S + N go down, L manfully (womanfully?) contends with M to get him to go to sleep + then sleeps herself.

Today, honestly: deep, base desire to mong out w/ Netflix. Tiring day w/ kids + brain craves disengagement + addlement. L. had a very low moment, struggling w/ baby + wondering how on earth we can start N. on homeschool next week w/ this baby. One of those husbandly moments of staring down the black hole of your wife’s problems + having nothing to offer. Have learned now not to try empty consolation. Just sat, said nothing. Tried to just be there. But that is hard. L. is far more initially inclined to despair than me, but I then despair at her despairing + languish much longer than her initial bout. When she has a black hole moment, it saps my energy in minutes—makes me physically tired, almost overcome w/ need to sleep. My habitual response is brain-numbing screen-time. Snuck onto my laptop today after L. rallied herself, w/ the self-important justification of “keeping up w/ the news”.

That low-point lingered over the day, slowed everything down w/ knock-on effects which meant late dinner, late bedtime, lots of tidying. When that was all done, close to 10pm, I just wanted to space out. Almost physical need, like low blood sugar or gasping for tea after a long walk in bracing weather.

In the end, I avoided it—listened to an audiobook whilst washing up (Hyperion, Dan Simmons), then sat + made a booklet of poems I’ve written whilst on holiday to give to L. as a present. Was also taken to write one by the sight of the moon—bright waxing gibbous sending a strip of light across the bay. Think I’ll also read some of D.H. Lawrence’s poems aloud—have been enjoying them this holiday, despite myself (+ despite them, to be fair).

All this can sound like the hoity-toity, pretentious evening I always imagined non-TV-havers would have, but it doesn’t exactly feel like a session of the Dead Poets’ Society. Has a pervasive air of “should I just go to bed?” + just seeking something moderately worthwhile for the time—again, how I imagine Austen characters. On that note: sapped of energy, desire to read fiction = non-existent. Mansfield Park untouched for a week. Can only manage poetry (shorter, self-contained) + non-fiction (facts demand less of you). Coming full circle: that’s usually my Netflix comfort viewing: documentaries, not trash or sitcoms. Disengage + let a stream of factual info beyond your ability to research or confirm wash over you.

Thursday 7th September 2023

First full day back. Insane September heatwave. Nightmare day for L, home w/ 3 kids—baby can’t sleep, older two whinging. Exactly the day for TV, wouldn’t have blamed her. But by gum, she stuck to it + the kids still think its is broken.

Will physically remove it next week.

Monday 11th September 2023

Tonight, TV went up into attic. Will come down for special family movie nights + maybe sick days.

Considered just telling the kids it’s gone to be fixed + just having it never come back. But decided it’s a good + necessary time to be explicit about what we value at home. N. is 4, so will comprehend somewhat. S only 2—won’t be happy. But today, after his nap, he sat + did colouring w/ a level of concentration we’ve never seen before. Six weeks ago, would have demanded “watching”. We’re watching atrophied little muscles grow strong again.

Tuesday 12th September 2023

Explained the TV decision to both children. Both were… fine. Absolutely fine + excited that TV will only come down for special family movie time (S. requested Muppets Treasure Island again). This is what children are like when left to themselves + spared the machine-gun fire of dopamine that screens provide: relentlessly in the world + busy with it.

L just got an old Taschen book of Carl Larsson. Lots of Larsson paintings in her parents’ house + I’ve begun to appreciate them. Remind me of Shirly Hughes illustrations—the sweetness of normality. Like Austen, they make goodness (the everyday kind, not the mythic Lewis/Tolkien kind) not boring, but living + active—as kingfishers catch fire etc. Larsson and Shirley Hughes do it especially w/ children—such tactile styles, you can feel the children feeling their way around a world of fabrics + glass + wood + toys + dirt + hair. Shirley Hughes draws kids’ hands like no-one else.

Am I just seeing the Hughes/Larsson nature of my kids better now? Or are they actually more like a Hughes/Larsson picture as they withdraw from the small amount of screentime we’d been giving them?

Meanwhile: L. and I busy enough with baby, work, homeschool etc. that we’ve not really had a chance to miss the TV.

Thursday 14th September 2023

Came across Larsson’s “When the Children Have Gone to Bed”. This is what I want. To think that people’s nights once looked like this!

Friday 15th September 2023

11pm—just home from church youth group. I want TV. Would normally zone out for an hour now, watching sitcoms on Netflix—usually People Just Do Nothing. One of my rare bits of routine TV—hard to shake, like muscle memory; surprised myself. Today, I do not want the Larsson painting.

Saturday 16th September

We both think S. has been much easier to manage—far fewer meltdowns, fewer “witching hours”. He doesn’t even ask for “watching” when he would have done before, after just a week of removing TV from usual slots. It’s like we’ve removed an escape hatch. W/ the option of TV off the table + the living room no longer oriented to it, he pulls himself together and goes off w/ N.

Mum popped in yesterday, asked how it was going, told her the above—she said “really?!” Looked sceptical. Reacted similarly when she first saw it was gone + in the loft. “That will be a faff, getting it down all the time” she said—somewhat missing the point. Mum can’t imagine life + parenting w/o a TV—and, to be fair, the threat of no TV was all that worked on me as a kid. But then, what would I have been like w/ no TV in the first place?

Saying all that: L. is tuning in more to what the kids are playing + noticing how much of it comes from TV. They roleplay The Lion King a lot, which we’re fine with. But then there are things we’ve never shown them—Pokemon, superheroes, computers. Earlier they played “Watching the TV at Nanny’s.” Interesting to see how this plays out.

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Honestly: I want the telly tonight for a lazy Saturday evening of beer, pizza, + a movie.

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In the end, baby actually slept in the evening for the first time, so L + I actually spent the evening together talking—talked about the kids, then I read aloud a chapter of Heschel’s Sabbath. Was falling asleep with the words in my mouth by the end, so we turned in.

Sunday 17th September

Sunday afternoon—S and M both sleeping, N busy w/ colouring  + listening to Prince Caspian. Just now, L was preparing bread in the breadmaker + announced she was in the mood to knit—then said she is now always in the mood to make things. Then she turned to me + said: “I love not having a TV. It’s like I’ve got my brain back. I feel like I’ve not had this brain since before I got a smartphone. It’s like it’s got its shape back. I actually want to spend the afternoon painting or something—that’s always what I did when I was a teenager. I always thought it was a mental health things—but maybe it’s just been my phone.”

L. also noted last night, after we came home from a kids’ 5th birthday party: from this point, our kids will begin to diverge more + more from their peers. Before 5, before school, opting out of a lot of modern parenting stuff doesn’t make too much difference when they’re w/ other children—it’s more about life at home. But from now on, if you opt out of things which everyone else defaults into, the gulf b/w your kids + others gets wider and wider.

Friday 22nd September 2023

Friday was always TV time after the kids came home from nursery. Justification: end of the week, kids tired, Daddy needs to do dinner quick to get to youth group. Today, brought S. + he didn’t even notice there was no TV—he just played with N. straight away. Current favourite game: “Not Nice Cats”, whatever that means.

L. said: “I can’t believe how much of a monster we created for ourselves.”

Friday 29th September 2023

L. sick as a dog today + home w/ N and M whilst S. was at nursery. Definitely a day where we’d have defaulted to TV before, throwing in the towel early. But N. spent the day drawing + cutting out paper dolls + their horses + listening to The Wind in the Willows—happy + busy all day apparently.

Saturday 30th September 2023

Took N. to a birthday party at 3pm today. S. woke up from his nap while we were out. Asked for Play Dough when he got up—that’s what L. does w/ him if she ever just has him. Guarantee before he’d have woken + demanded “watching” in a foul mood + been miserable until his sister got home.

Saturday 14th October 2023

Mine and N’s birthday today—she’s 5, I’m 31. L. bought me a print of Larsson’s “When the Children Have Gone to Bed” as a present.

Sunday 15th October 2023

Today we had our first family movie since putting TV in loft 6 weeks ago. Thought a birthday weekend was a good excuse. L has been reading The Wind in the Willows w/ the children so we watched the 90s cartoon—Alan Bennett (Mole), Michael Palin (Rat), Michael Gambon (Badger), Rik Mayall (Toad). We want these move times to be special, so drew curtains + made popcorn (I burned one batch). A lovely time (I fell asleep in my chair for most of it). When finished, S. immediately asked to watch Stick Man—remarkable how he snapped back to that after 6 weeks. Hell of a drug for a 2 year old boy. Not happy when the TV went back in the loft, but then pottered off + was in good spirits w/ his sister until bed.

Monday 16th October

Been occurring to me frequently that, if my kids grow up w/o TV, they they will be w/o the huge web of references to TV shows which make up so much of my mental furniture + which, to be honest, I hold quite dear. Someone at church yesterday made a reference to Mr. Burns + someone else had no idea who that was b/c they’d not been allowed to watch The Simpsons growing up. Prompted a surge of self-righteousness: congratulated myself on being someone who got rid of the TV tout court for intelligent anti-modernity reasons, rather than just piously forbidding certain shows. But the thought of a life w/o Simpsons references threw me. I probably make one every other day (even if just to myself). Same with The Office (UK + US) and Only Fools and Horses.

I’m aware that I’ve surely wasted plenty of time watching episodes of all these on repeat. Obvious dangers there. Easier to watch the cosy, pre-2016 world of the US Office + warm yourself on the glow of its fake relationships than it is to go about forming your own w/ the people life forces you into proximity with (which is the whole premise of the show). Yet revisiting something like that feels like it does my soul some good—it’s good to be reminded of a world before our current cultural darkness + madness. All these sitcoms take me back there, actually. A time when—so it feels now, anyway—comedy wasn’t driven by the puerile or politically correct, when there was enough of a shared cultural fabric for these massive shows to cement themselves in a shared national consciousness.

Only Fools and Horses is particularly special—draws my close to my family background. Saddens me to think my kids may not know what “lovely jubbly” and “mange tout, mange tout Rodney!” mean. I think “maybe I can show them when they’re older”—who knows, maybe I will. But I feel like getting a TV out for the kind of idle watching required of sitcoms would just allow it to creep back into home life in harmful ways. And how many TV shows really get passed down from parent to child? 

Since the TV went, I have definitely spent more time in classic texts—Austen, Dante, Milton. The time is there now. I wish I had been made to give them the time when I was younger. So perhaps these are the references my children can grow up with—though who knows how they’ll find others similarly interested. But I guess I just need to trust that it is better to be able to refer to Lewis riffing on Dante riffing on Virgil riffing on Homer than it is to be able to drop the perfect Steve Carrell GIF in the group chat.

Tuesday October 31st 2023

Last week: hellish. Everyone ill; half term, so S. wasn’t at nursery + so was home all day. He is current difficult at the best of times. L was close to calling in for a TV day—but we rallied; audiobooks + enforced quiet time in the bedrooms helped ,The thought is always there of course (+ is quite possibly true) that it would not be the end of the world if we got the TV down for some respite on a hard day—at the very least to give L some respite from the older two. There is, of course, nothing wrong with that in itself—we’re good Protestants + so not overly bound by vows. TV watching is adiaphora—but I have learned in recent years that a Protestant view of adiaphora largely amounts to saying there is no intrinsic merit or demerit in certain actions, contra Roman Catholic views of reciting “Hail Marys” (merit) or eating fish on Fridays (demerit). This is a far cry then from asking whether certain actions can usually be done by anyone w/o demerit, or whether they can be done by me/us w/o demerit. For us, right now, the answer seems no: if we caved on this, I do not trust us to have done it for righteous or excusable reasons.

And what’s more: would it have made things easier? Yes, we may have gained a quiet hour, but would that then not have been cancelled out by S. being post-dopamine grumpy for the next hour after?

One thing this has all taught me is that one cannot always assume their children will behave as expected when you dish out their technology rations.