Things I Wouldn't Camp in Front of A Store to Get

Tonight I stopped off at Target and there were seven people in lawn chairs sitting in a line outside the door. One person had a small tent pitched at the end of the line. I asked why they were there and one woman said, "To get away from my kids!" I told her that was a good enough reason for me. What they were actually doing, however was lining up for tomorrow morning's release of the new Play Station version whatever.

This, I would not camp in front of a store to get.

But then, we did without t.v. for eight years. It broke, we couldn't really afford the part right then for Cool Guy to fix it, and after about a week, we looked at one another and said, "Hey, this is pretty nice...." and threw it away.

Now, mind you--our children were 4 and 2 and 1...there was no cable t.v. yet...no one at our house watched sports...VCR's weren't invented yet...and we loved to listen to music and read. Although, one year I had two children who quit my home daycare after a week when they couldn't handle living in a house, even for three hours after school, without a t.v. or a video game set-up.

I grew up in a home where the television was mostly always on. I loved and still love to watch the tube. But, honestly, we rarely missed it! Occasionally, I'd rent one for Christmas break, still pre-cable, but we lived in a big city and so could easily get the broadcast channels. And no one was forbidden to go to a friend's house and watch it now and then. But mostly our kids played and read and made crafts and dressed up and wrote family newspapers, and dug huge pits in the pathetically ratty backyards we seemed to always have. And had wars with GI Joes during which Barbie was taken as prisoner and inevitably died and a funeral and burial followed. (I didn't buy Barbies again after she was lost in an unmarked grave...)

We bought a t.v. again one year after Cool Guy was given a broken VCR which he repaired. We figured we could watch movies. Well, cable had been invented and so we started watching regularly again. But, if we wanted to see a show at 8:00 and then another one at 10:00, we'd shut it off in between. And we still read books, and played GI Joes and made crafts and dug huge pits in the backyard (curious how that activity remained popular over the years even as the children grew older.)

But at no time would I have considered owning a game console. Yes, I was [and am] the evil mother who would not permit one to be purchased and installed. Okay, we had computer games. But no way, no how, will I ever live in a house with a game console. To me it is the equivalent of crack for kids. I've taught nine year olds for 12 years. And the kids who play a lot of video games have no imagination for story-telling. They do not read for fun. They don't even play outside very often! They live, eat, and breath X-BOX/GAMECUBE/PS3/whatever. I think it is a path to brain inertia at the least, and brain damage at the worst.

So, you'll never find me camped outside a store, waiting for the release of the newest, bestest, coolest brain-cell sucking object for my children. I just laughed with/at them in a nice way and went into the store.

I didn't tell them that as a parent and a school teacher I was appalled and horrified that they would waste the time and the money on something so destined to stunt their child's intellectual growth and physical health. Since none of them asked.