The Times, They Are A Changin'

It used to be that in the evening, Tim and I would settle down in front of the TV and watch a show or two off the DVR. We had a number of things that we watched with great regularity and enjoyed (that should go without saying, I suppose). It was a good way to end the brain drain of the day spent at work.

When the elder boy came along, the viewing slowed somewhat, but we still would find ourselves in front of the TV after he was tucked cozily in bed. We'd even, occasionally, watch something while he was up and playing. And generally he paid very little attention to what was on the TV, so we could still indulge in NCIS or something of that ilk.

As he got older, the elder boy began paying more attention and the shows we could watch slowly dribbled to one or two. As it stands right now, I'll let him watch Masterchef with me (though if they continue to encourage all the bleeping that needs to go on, that may end. He's starting to ask why there are beeps) and Wipeout. And sometimes So You Think You Can Dance, though honestly, some of the dancing is so suggestive that I have a hard time thinking any of us should actually be watching it.

And so Tim and I find ourselves looking at the list of shows on the DVR and realizing that we can't watch them with the kiddo in the room. And then we ask ourselves, if we can't watch them with him around, should we really be watching them? Now, the gore content of things like Burn Notice and NCIS are not so high that we probably couldn't watch them with him, but I'd just as soon he not get fixated on it (because he does, and then he runs around for the next week shooting and exploding everything. And while some of that is normal boy and is going to happen even if I wrap him in bubble wrap and play Barney all day, there is a part of it that is more extreme when he's been around too much TV.) Add to that the fact that we're losing interest in the majority of the shows anyway, because it seems like the need for shock value keeps getting ratcheted up every season and what was an amusing, semi-family-friendly comedy is now a raunchy, 12-year-old boy's fantasy.

So we find ourselves realizing that we probably don't need to be paying for our Dish every month. With Amazon Prime to stream kid shows as needed, and possibly Hulu Plus to get the few shows we do still care about (if they're not on Amazon Prime), we're thinking we'll do just as well - and we'll save quite a bit of cash.

I never thought I'd be one of those people with no actual TV service...but it's looking like a definite possibility around here. And I can't say I think I'm going to miss it.