He speaks TV commercial now. If ever I doubted the effects of advertising on kids (I didn't, but whatever), I need not doubt anymore. My child has become a walking, breathing TV commercial. The other day it was, "mommy, I want to see Hop by the makers of Despicable Me," as I scrambled to get ready for class. A couple of weeks ago he woke me up on a Saturday, sometime between 5:30 and 6 a.m., to breathlessly tell me, "mommy, you know what's in stores now?!" This morning, when I served what was not, in his estimation, enough Fruity Pebbles (the one truly junkie food he's allowed, only on Saturday mornings), he furrowed his brow and pouted, "but mommy, don't you know it's part of a complete breakfast?" I started out really good, limiting TV to weekend mornings and sometimes Friday evenings. This, after catching myself in a long-standing habit of allowing TV every day, which I honestly have mixed feelings about. I thought it was good that he watched only cartoons, and that, because of his own interests, he wasn't into ones I consider inappropriate for his age. But then, I got lax. He was ready for school and we still had 20 minutes, so o.k., go ahead and watch Scooby Doo. He did his homework and dinner wasn't ready, so o.k., Spongebob. Like this, till I realized it was a daily occurrence. I swing in my feelings about TV. Part of me doesn't give a crap, because again, it's never more than one or two cartoon episodes, and always stuff I'm o.k. with. Seriously, Tom & Jerry and Max & Ruby don't seem to be messing the kid up. At the same time, it's TV, which, once you become a parent, you're subject to judgment for allowing it, which sucks, and which you quickly realize can be a big bad habit if you don't pay close enough attention to your actions. So I get what's bad about TV, and I think I've been very conscious about limiting my son's exposure to it. I get it enough to not like having the TV on much, to not feeling comfortable with daily TV watching, to being conservative about what's allowed. I live between these two feelings, not caring because of the limits I impose and feeling like a bad parent for slacking off and letting it become a daily habit. But it was the commercial-speak that jarred me into realizing I'd become too lax, because here was the glaring effect of that. Max by nature easily memorizes random things and spews them back out; it's not just what he hears on TV. But the TV talk has been disturbing to me (o.k., and really funny, too, but disturbing), and so I've realized, slacking off about this is not going to work for us, it's not something I can afford to shrug away, because as he gets older and his interests change, this has the potential to become problematic. Right now, he's parroting what he's memorized. But what happens when he actually understands it? We've gone back to no TV during the week, only Friday evenings and weekend mornings, a compromise I'm comfortable with (and frankly, something I myself enjoyed as a child). Though that doesn't fully address the commercial-speak (seeing that he did it this morning), I am trying to focus on how I approach the notion of TV in general. Since I can't control other environments, I do my best here to explain to him that everything on TV is make-believe, and show him that TV is just one of many, many things to do, and that at most, it should be considered a treat, not a right. Ah, yet another part of this work-in-progress and that elusive goal, finding balance....