Children are into all sorts of TV programmes and films. They make very quick decisions on what they like and what they don’t. Though often swayed by what we encourage, they can make up their minds instantly that they love or loathe something. If it’s love, they watch it religiously, request all of its merchandise and even dress up as its favourite characters.
I do think that there is a part of us as their parents that either tries incredibly hard to coax them into sharing our viewing interests or indeed forces them to endure the things that we like to watch. Though more often than not It’s the other way around. For me growing up in had no choice.
The dreaded Sunday afternoon viewing still holds firm in my memory. Some of my earliest recollections are of those lazy Sunday afternoons, being told under no uncertain circumstances was I allowed to watch my kids TV programmes. Instead I was to sit quietly in my allocated chair on the middle of the three-seater sofa (the lowest ranked seat in the whole living room). My dad sat in his; the highest ranked and most coveted in the living room and for all I knew, possibly the world. The remote control or ‘magic box’ as it was known in our house, God knows why, had its place next to dad on the table along with a cup of tea and an ancient, bruised and battered tobacco tin, possibly from the Jurassic period, I’m not sure. Sunday TV was his. This was where it felt like every TV programming commissioner in the country vowed to conspire against me and pay homage to my father. In other words, every Sunday there was an old western on the tele.
On those afternoons, I’d have to sit through countless hours of John Wayne riding around the Wild West or Clint Eastwood narrowing his eyes and whispering angrily through the side of his mouth. My dad loved it! Sometimes there were those three-hour epics on instead, like Ben Hur or Spartacus. They were especially tough to bear. Incidentally I love watching those films now…
The start of each Sunday screening was frequently superseded by dad telling me to stop sulking and that I might actually learn something. However, before the end of the film, before any sieges on any towns had finished and before anybody had been told to get off their horse and drink their milk, my dad was sat slouched in his chair, head back, mouth open and fast asleep! This happened every week without fail. But that didn’t mean that I could change the channel to what I wanted to watch. Oh no. Though he was both audibly and visibly snoring, my father had installed in him a powerful sensor. Should I get so far as to actually change the channel, that sensor would signal an alarm deep inside his brain, triggering him to wake up, snatch the ‘magic box’ from me and declare indignantly that he was “watching that!” I’d sulk back into my allocated chair and he’d drop back off to sleep. After a while I decided that entertaining myself was my only option so I devised an experiment/game of putting my head on his chest and measuring how far it went up and down with each breath.
Never mind I thought to myself. I’ll be a dad one day and then I can watch all the TV I want.
Well, more than 20 years later I am a dad. Unfortunately though my younger self was entirely wrong. As I write this, my daughter Juno is 2 years old and has already usurped any semblance of power that I have clawed my way to get. We are quite strict with TV time but I’ve realised that it only serves to put my viewing interests on the bench. Like a lot of toddlers, she has her favourites. Peppa is well up there and the animated version of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ was on constant repeat over Christmas. And of course Anna and Elsa are practically Godparents.
So what on earth am I talking about Nazis for? Thanks to my aunt who has Juno every Monday, she is utterly obsessed with ‘The Sound of Music’. She watches it, sings the songs and even acts out each Von Trapp kid on the stairs! She loves it! I still find it pretty amazing that a film, decades old, can still have such drawing power for a little girl.
Unsettlingly one day, as she sat in the highest ranked seat of the living room, I walked in to find her intently watching a pretty dark scene involving the Nazis. Juno turned to me, smiled and instructed me that “this is good daddy!” I hope she meant the film and not Nazi persecution. I was too scared to get clarification.
So my quest for TV time continues. Maybe I can try encouraging her to start sharing my interests, but for the time being at least, I think I’m resigned to watching things that are at least 50 years old.
Never mind. I’m sorry TV programmes that I enjoy. I’ll see you again some day.
So long. Farewell. Auf Wiedersehen. Goodbye.
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