I Like to Watch

When I was about six years old, my mother decided that I'd had enough TV in my life, broke off the antenna and banned it from the house.

Thus began my obsession with the tube.

At friends' houses, all I'd want to do is watch. But maybe because my TV addiction was interrupted at such a young, suggestible age, I don't remember ever feeling deprived, bored or pressed to fill hours. I read, a lot. I played music, rode my bike, did kid stuff. I didn't even watch TV in college. I remember how the halls cleared on the nights of LA Law (the favorite of government majors) and 30-Something (for the liberal arts crowd), but I never thought to join in.

Until I moved in with my husband, Larry. Larry had a big TV, and he got me into The Simpsons, the gateway drug to every other funny show.

Now I'm hooked. We have Tivo and what's got to be the best programming on TV in years. 30 Rock. Mad Men. The Unit. Heroes. Entourage. Weeds. Not to mention Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart on Comedy Central. The list goes on and on.

Judith Warner writes on her blog that she is considering cable TV, so as not to deprive her daughters of pop culture (or herself). Her daughters seem game and promise not to be "retards" if they start watching the expanded offerings of Disney and Nickelodeon.

I try to imagine my mom posing that question to my high school self. But she beat me to it.

A few years ago, my mom bought her own TV, and is now just as obsessed with shows as I am. (She prefers Sex and the City and The Closer, and more recently even subscribed to HBO so she could watch Tell Me You Love Me, which reviews claim to be practically porn. She claims it's about relationships).

TV never was as evil as my mom thought or as good as my friends thought. But after my TV-free childhood, it sure is fun being an adult.