to hate " oh we dont watch tvs - just DVDs"

[RolandButter]

its television you MORONS

oh right, you mean people who don't have a tv licence or who don't let their kids watch tv?

no fanjo, people who say in a smug way that they don't allow their children to watch tv as it is bad for them. They then say in the next breath that they sometimes watch dvd's. Because that is different

We have just got a TV after living without one for four years - after years of living abroad, we had got used to not watching it, plus our tv aerial was broken and we didn't have a license. I never claimed that the kids didn't watch stuff or that it was some sort of parenting choice - they watched CBeebies on the laptop and DVDs on the portable. It was because DH and I were totally out of the habit of watching TV and still are, and don't see a TV as a necessity so were too tight/skint to spend money on one.

What was interesting was how hostile and defensive other people were if we said we didn't have a TV - family members in particular assumed we were making some judgement about their TV habits. We used to get loads of snidey remarks about how our children would be bullied/ignorant/snobs etc.

Anyway, we now have an enormous TV, the kids love it and DH and I still don't watch it (much ). Why does anyone care how much TV other people watch?

one of my favourite pastimes is shouting at the telly and then switching it off. i do it all the time. its a bit silly doing it with a dvd

I bloody love telly, me.

I don't mind if that's what they want to do. It's the banging on about it that pisses me off.
It's like people who don't have a telly ALWAYS tell you about it. What they're actually saying is 'I have no TV and therefore I am your intellectual and social superior'.

They are twats.

Can I say that DS doesn't watch T.V. (television, tele., the boob tube... whatever)and I pretty much never mention that fact to anyone....

...unless someone asks me what his favourite programme is and then I say 'well, he doesn't watch T.V. yet...' and pretty much look all embarrassed - cos I know others do think if I say he doesn't watch it, it's a slam on their parenting choices, and I really don't mean it that way at all!

I just don't like it - loud, annoying, bugging me to buy things with the stupid commercials.

I do watch it myself after DS is in bed, and pretty much feel like I'm eating Macdonald's for my brain.

Hypocrite! Will definitely have to sort something out for when DS starts asking to watch it....

This sounds like an old thread, I had to check the date it was started to see if it was recent.

I can't be bothered reading it all, but there are smug gits out there, with/out televisions....

I happen to be without, but I try to keep very quiet about it, if someone asks if I saw something, I just say no, but if I have heard about it (on the radio), or read about it in the paper I can usually have a discussion and they are totally unaware of the fact that I don't have a television.

No big deal really...

Er yes because we don't own a television but we do have an old computer monitor that we watch (gasp!) video cassettes/ DVDs on. Do all non watchers look down on those who let their children watch television then?

I was actually raised in a family of 4 where the television was on pretty much for 24 hours. When I left to go to uni it was a relief not to have it although I did miss watching "Friends" on Friday evenings.

We are not opposed to watching television or in our case video on a computer screen. Sometimes our dcs need it at the end of the day if they've been active all day. ds used to request "Baby Mozart" before a nap.

Exactly Cran, there are some smug TV owners as well as non owners.

So?

I grew up without a TV (too poor). We don't have a digibox, we do have a DVD player. We watch DVDs and play on the wii. Where's the issue?

I worry that dd won't be clued up on the same things her friends chat about. Asked another mum of 4 who doesn't have a tv and was told it isn't a big deal.

People who think we are being snooty or smug, we aren't. I actually don't know why we haven't bothered to get a digibox, or tune our TV in prior to that. It's actually embarrassing to admit to being so weird different.

Don't have a TV and just watch DVDs or over the t'internet. I never mention it unless someone asks or says "did you see blah blah show last night?" and I respond "no, I don't have a TV". It's not snobbery or anything, it happened from skintness and not wanting to pay for a TV license. I prefer watching stuff on the internet anyway - fewer or no ads disrupting my viewing pleasure.

YABU to hate them, yes.

I'm still hanging around to find out what happened with AlpenCrazy's holiday

DS1 (3) switches the TV off himself whenever there's something he doesn't like (barely gives me enough time to have a shower some mornings - he's getting fussier), whereas I have to deal with tantrums if I switch off a DVD that he does like (Mr Benn at the moment). He'd watch far more on DVD if I would let him.

sorry mummygirl

argument escalated dh stole laptop did some teccy thing with it i was forced to watch telly!!!!!!!!!! it was crap so i shouted at it, then shouted again at dh, forgot all about holiday, made packed lunches for tomorrow, tidied away MOUNTAINS of crap and then got laptop back. so no further on really. story of my life

YANBU if they are being smug about it.

FWIW some of my best times as a child were spent in front of kids tv (thundercats, button moon, trapdoor...) with a twist and squeeze which I suppose is the old school fruit shoot?! ;)

We got rid of our telly for two years, watched the very occasional thing on iplayer (as in one program every couple of weeks) but then I got pregnant again and morning sickness led to cbeebies for DD1. Then we moved out of our big busy shared house within five minutes of all our friends to a house in the suburbs three hours away. BIL died and left a tv, so we took it and signed up for the free cable tv (we already had phone and internet, so the basic tv package was free) and never looked back

tbh, it is mainly used for cbeebies, which DD1 probably watches far too much of, as I forget it is there for me and dp, and we tend to just watch box sets and get obsessed with them anyway. It is nice to have though, and I get my licence fees worth out of the bbc radio and internet, so don't begrudge that.

Best thing about cable is the "on demand" feature. We hardly ever watch things when they are ON, that is so last century

People did react with horror and get quite aggressive about it when we said we had no telly though, like by not having it we were somehow abusing DD or something

I agree with OP - there is no difference between watching a TV channel, watching a DVD or streaming e.g. iPlayer. I can't see that any of the options gives anyone the right to be smug.

My children watch a lot of CBeebies - way too much actually. I feel crap about it.

Could someone come along and explain what 'iplayer' means on this thread. In my world it is a widget from the BBC that you can download onto your computer and watch tv programmes at times to suit you.

On this thread there are lots of people saying that they don't watch tv 'only iplayer and dvds'. Why is watching tv programmes on iplayer not classed as watching tv?

loving the q

MollieO - your understanding of iPlayer is correct.