Our family recently moved from a major city that’s sort of known for its smugness and elitism.  In this city, one of the ways you can improve your hipster status is to boycott watching TV.  You’re soooooo cool if you don’t watch TV, and even cooler if you talk about how you’ve used all your extra free time to travel extensively and experience so many different cultures.  I can’t tell you how relieved I was when, in the early stages of dating, my wife asked, “Do you watch The Sopranos?”  I was like “Oh thank god; she watches TV.”

So, if it was uncool for an individual to watch TV in this city, you can imagine how infinitely uncool it was for a parent to let their child watch TV.  Though many parents seemed to think it was perfectly acceptable to give their 18-month-old an iPhone to stare at the dizzying array of kids apps so they don’t have to talk to them at the dinner table, it was decidedly frowned upon to let your child watch TV. Going out to movies?  Yes, perfectly cool.  Letting them watch TV or a movie at home?  No, definitely poopooed. continue…