500 or 15: Television

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500 words or 15 minutes (whichever comes first) on my topic of the moment. This moment is…
Television. Aaargh. I love a couch potato moment as much as the next gal, but this latest Juice Box Jungle video got me thinking. How do I “use” the boob tube with my kids? And, is it intentional? Or, do I just default to their love of Elmo and my own need for THEIR entertainment.

My boys love their movies: Charlie Brown, Dora, Elmo, Barney, Winnie the Pooh – the academy award nominees of toddler land. Every day, they take turns choosing the first “movie” to watch when we get home from day care. I’ve found this hour or so of DVD time to be a great way for me to keep my sanity at the dreaded “transition hour.” You know the one, the hour between work and home, daycare and home, hungry and filled, outside and inside and so forth.

When everyone comes home after long (and mostly fun) days, there is sometimes no rest for weary Mommy and Daddy, so our solution has been a little DVD time. We alternate who gets to pick the movie first and they all settle in to bean bag or chair or couch with juice and milk in hands. Sometimes they stay there glued to the action and sometimes they opt for cars and trucks and random storytelling with the show in the background. And, sometimes even Hub and I come running not to miss our favorite funny parts. But, the movies give the grown-ups a chance to say “how was your day” and give the Mommy a chance to get dinner started with maybe a little less multi-tasking. Mind-numbing qualities aside, to the credit of kid programming producers everywhere, the experience really has taught my bunch a lot about everything from how toilet paper is made to who Abraham Lincoln is to how to act like a monkey. (Wait, we didn’t really need any training for that. They popped out with the knowledge already in hand.)

As for regular TV programming, realistically we don’t watch much at our house, at least not the cable and network kind. Being that I have one big sports fan and two (or three, lest we ignore Title 9) little sports fans in training at my house, ESPN does get some air time as well as Fox Sports South and whoever else might be broadcasting live baseball or SEC football.

The main thing that keeps us away from the standard programming and the big concern I have with even sports broadcasting is the commercials. They regularly confuse and scare my just-shy-of-4-year old while my just-shy-of-2 ½ year old is blissfully unaware, at the moment. When we watched the Super Bowl this year, we COULDN’T watch it for reassuring Little Drummer Boy. We finally ended up turning it off. (You can experience my sleep-deprived rant on the issue here.) I’m all about mastering the remote for programs that show my kids things I don’t want them to know until they’re 30, but even with sports or kid-friendly programming, advertisements are still the wild-card.

So at our house, sometimes it’s a toss-up between our favorite dinosaurs and monsters or our favorite teams, and we’re all slowly learning that since we “only have one TV,” (I know, it’s shocking!) “we have to share!” When dinner’s on the table and it’s time for family time, usually there’s a rush to see who can turn OFF the tube first. I guess that’s something.

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500/15 on Equality

This morning, I’ve been following the coverage of the California State Supreme Court hearings on the constitutionality of Proposition 8 – the California gay marriage ban that passed by a 52% margin of the popular vote in November. The arguments, protesters and media are a world away from my office lunch break here in Mississippi, but the debate is inescapable. The common relevant phrase today is “marriage equality” and it has me thinking about the nature of equality itself. I saw a Prop 8 protest badge on a blog earlier in the week (the blog you didn’t know I was reading–a post on that later): “Equality should not be put up for a popular vote.”

It begs the question: Is equality a popularity contest? Equal is one of those words (like unique) that is or isn’t. It’s, by definition, a mathematical absolute. Something can’t be nearly equal or slightly equal or very equal. People, situations, equations are equal or not. So, is marriage an issue of equality? People are never inherently equal to one another. Our differences are a biological given. Since marriages are made up of people, is it even possible to seek that kind of “equality” in a meaningful way? Is it right to try?

In the tweet coverage of the Court arguments, I see many references to “inalienable” and the question of whether the “right” to marry (or form a union) is an “inalienable right” that falls somewhere in the realms of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In that grand list, we read that the truth of equality is “self-evident.”

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

All men are created equal—declared by a bold ownership of independence and freedom, the freedom to choose our own way. No, we are not all equal in our abilities. We are not all equal in our choices. But, we are all created with an equal ability to make those choices. And, much to the chagrin of our manifest destiny mentality and our conservative bravado, neither the Declaration of Independence nor the California constitution bestows that equality and ensuing freedom of choice. God, the Creator, is the originator of the concept.

Do I believe gay marriage is “right”? No. Would I choose it for me and mine? No. Do I think we need a law on the books banning it? Is God’s law enough? Can I as a person or we as a society rightfully deny a choice God has given? Even if that choice is opposed to His expressed desire? Can I reach out to those in the protest line and respect a common equality despite the differences in lifestyle choices? Can we find ourselves on equal footing as people, as mothers, as citizens? Despite a slight majority, can we somehow equal more than the mere total of our numbers? Those questions require more than 500 or 15.

For a brief history of the California Proposition 8 story, visit the LA Times chronology.  Be forewarned: LAT officially endorsed a “Vote No” stance on Prop 8 on November 2, 2008.