At one point I was reading a parenting message board, and the topic of households without TV came up. Somebody said (and I paraphrase loosely here):

"Well, I think it's great that you're willing to make such a big sacrifice for your children, but it's not going to make any big difference to them."

This statement just annoyed me to bits.

At first I thought it was because of the whole "big sacrifice" thing. Yes, it was a terrible sacrifice I made for my child! Before she was born I was watching minutes of TV a month! And now I watch… hey, wait a minute, about the same amount. OK, so it was a terrible sacrifice I made for my husband. Because actually, I did watch TV before he came along. I gave up my luxurious TV-centered lifestyle for him. Why, I had a 5 inch diagonal TV and all the programs you could get off the air. It was a color TV and everything. Cable? Would you get cable if you had a 5 inch diagonal TV? I watched DVDs on my laptop, because it had a bigger screen. OK, so maybe that wasn't such a terrible sacrifice, either. We even still have the TV, in case we should want to watch a genuine videotape. Or maybe find out what programs you can get off the air. Next time I have pneumonia I'll get right on that. So, no, giving up a TV is not a big sacrifice for everybody. People are different.

Then I thought it was because of the "no big difference" thing. I can understand believing that TV is no big deal. I can understand believing that giving it up is a big sacrifice. I can't understand believing both at once. Something that is so central to your life that you have trouble giving it up is something that is shaping your life. As long as it isn't actually dominating your life, there's probably nothing wrong with that. (If it's more important than the people around you, there's something wrong. Regardless of what "it" is.) Making a big sacrifice for your children will make a difference in their lives. A good difference, a bad difference, or a value-neutral difference? I dunno. But something will change.

And that brings me to the next thing that ticked me off: "I think it's great..." So making completely pointless sacrifices for your children is a good thing? That's just icky and wrong. Presumably, the original author didn't actually think it was great, either; she was merely being polite. Or trying to be polite and arriving at snarky instead (and that has been known to happen to me, too). Or actively trying to be snarky, who knows. But the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up at the idea that in this culture, it's reasonable to suggest that sacrificing for your children is inherently good. This is a sentence in which the author may be insincere, but she's not clearly being sarcastic, the way she would be if she said "I think it's great that you're willing to burn books..."

It's clearly a bad thing if parents are unwilling to make any sacrifices for their children. I'm not trying to be soppy here, but children actually are our future, and they don't raise themselves. It takes real work and real sacrifice to raise healthy, useful people. But at the same time, it takes being healthy yourself. And healthy people don't just up and make arbitrary sacrifices. Our culture leaps too rapidly to the idea that a good mother is a good martyr, which makes for unhealthy mothers, which in turn makes for unhealthy kids.

Which is a long way from my not watching TV. Let's just say that I don't find it even a small martyrdom. Possibly because I spend too much time on my computer instead.