Unplugged

A few years ago I heard a joke that made me cringe with self-awareness: "You might be a yuppie if everyone you know, knows you don't own a TV." Kevin and I would certainly have fit that description, since never in the eight years we've been living together have we ever owned a TV and since most people we know, know this about us. It wasn't that I went around announcing our TV-lessness to everyone (at least I hope not), but whenever friends/family/coworkers would ask "Did you see last night on The Apprentice/Dancing with the Stars/..." I would have to explain, "No, no I didn't. We don't own a TV."

Now that doesn't mean that we didn't watch TV. We just watched it on our computer. But we always tried to keep it to a minimum--our daily dose of The Daily Show and a movie or two on the weekends. Unfortunately, as Colin has gotten older, we've found ourselves turning to the TV more and more as a cheap and convenient babysitter. Like most three year olds, Colin has the attention span of a gnat; however, if you turn the TV on, he'll sit mesmerized for a full 90 minutes. Ninety glorious minutes!

How much TV was he watching? I'm not sure exactly, but probably 30 minutes on a "good day"--a short cartoon to help him unwind just before naptime--and three hours on a "bad" day--a day in which I was utterly exhausted or just really needed to get something done and so I would pop in a Disney movie ... and then another. 

It pains me to admit this because I always thought I would be a better parent that that. I mean, I was well aware that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no television for kids under two and less than two hours of "quality educational programming" for kids under six. (Well, at least we were only showing him the quality Disney movies...) 

Furthermore, I knew whatever the AAP recommended,  an hour or two a day of "quality educational programming" was still way too much TV for a three year old. Even most of the "educational" shows we'd pick out for him were obnoxious and frenetic. (Elmo I am wagging my finger at you.)  The rest were simply inappropriate for his level of emotional maturity. I can't tell you how many times I've had Colin ask me to explain the emotional dynamics of an episode of Arthur or Franklin because he couldn't comprehend even the ham-fisted "morals" of these simple stories. While an episode about Arthur being annoyed by his new baby sister might teach a six year old to be more patient and tolerant, it just teaches a three year old that baby siblings are, in fact, annoying.

In addition, I could see how watching these shows day after day was infecting his imaginative play. He was no longer inventing his own story lines, he was just reenacting scenes from Toy Story or The Incredibles. And that just seemed really sad to me.

So, after a lot of hemming and hawing, we finally did it: we unplugged the computer. Granted, we just moved it down to the spare room in our basement, but for Colin is has been "outta sight outta mind." After a few days of asking to watch movies every five minutes, he finally forgot all about them. 

At first I was worried about what to do when I needed a "babysitter" for him, but I needn't have been. He quickly learned how to play on his own again, and, much to my surprise, he's completely forgotten about all of the old TV characters that used to dominate his play. Now he makes up his own stories that quickly take on a life of their own. One minute he is a "magic fire-breathing dragon" and the next he is Little Red Riding Hood on his way to "grandmother's house." It's really a pleasure to watch.

Interestingly, the most revealing changes have not been in Colin but in me. With the computer moved to the basement I could not longer casually check my email or browse the internet throughout the day as I used to do. Now I'm really only able to do it before the kids wake up or after they go to bed. This means that during the day I'm much more "present" for them, and this seems to make them less whiney and needy (no doubt because their needs are better met by mama who's no longer zoning out on the computer 15 times a day).

Removing the computer has also made a huge change in the flow of our living room. Without the computer focusing all the energy into one corner of the room, the space finally flows. Your eye wanders over the entire room, and every corner is now a cozy place to sit down and chat or play or read a book. And without a computer in the room we've all been reading a lot more.

Now don't get me wrong. We haven't sworn off television all together. Most nights Kevin and I still creep down to the basement to watch our fix of The Daily Show after the kids have gone to bed, and on the weekends, Colin is allowed to watch one movie if he really wants to. But often, he's too busy playing to remember his TV privileges, and that is as it should be. 

Krazy for Knut

In case this story has not made it to the States yet, please allow me to introduce you to “Knut, der kleine Eisbär,” who is currently taking Germany by storm. Hardly a day goes by without a story about the baby polar bear on the evening news, and polls say that 58% of Germans follow his story on a daily basis. But, perhaps that’s to be expected. It’s a great story:

BERLIN, Germany – He was the “miracle baby,” the first polar bear born at the Berlin Zoo in more than 30 years. Immediately after birth, Knut (rhymes with “cute”) and his twin brother were abandoned by their mother, 30-year-old Tosca, a former circus performer. His brother died, but Knut has thrived under the 24-hour care of zookeeper Tom Dörflein, who sleeps on a cot by the bear’s pen and bottle feeds him every three hours just like a real baby.

At a mere three months of age, Knut made his world debut to a crowd of thousands. His portrait, by celebrity photographer Annie Leibowitz, has graced the cover of the newly launched German edition of Vanity Fair, and he’s became a symbol of the growing concern over climate change. “No ice, no polar bear,” said Sigmar Gabriel, the German Environment Minister, who is also Knut's godfather.

But soon after his successful debut, Knut fans the world over were stunned when animal rights activists called for him to be put down, saying that it was cruel for an Eisbär to be raised by humans. “Raising him by hand is not appropriate to the species but rather a blatant violation of animal welfare laws,” Frank Albrecht, an animal rights activist and window installer, told the German tabloid Das Bild. “In actual fact, the zoo needs to kill the bear cub – preferably with club, like the kind they use to club baby seals.”

Zoo officials claim they never entertained notions of euthanizing their “little cash cow.” In the months since his birth, the stock price of the publicly-traded zoo has more-than doubled from €2,000 per share to €4,900. In addition, the Berlin Zoo has earned millions in ticket sales and Knut merchandise. Up to 45,000 visitors flood through it’s gates every weekend, and the gift shop has had trouble keeping up with the demand for Knut T-shirts and plush Knut toys. There’s even a Knut song, a video ringtone, and a soon-to-be-released computer game.

In fact, the call for Knut’s death was merely satirical – a Swiftian suggestion, if you will – in response to a decision at the Leipzig Zoo back in December to euthanize a two-day-old sloth named Hugo after he was rejected by his mother. However, the subtleties of this statement were lost on the Eisbärchen’s youngest fans, who protested outside the zoo, holding up placards reading “Knut Must Live” and "We Love Knut.”

“Adults are so mean.” Celina, 6, told the Das Bild, “I would be really sad if little Knut had to die.”

“I thought animal rights activists were supposed to protect animals and didn't want to kill them,” added fellow protestor, Alexander, 4. “They are really silly!”

“I mean, come on,” said Job Bluth, 40, a businessman and freelance magician , “A Babyeisbär is 10 times – no 100 times cuter than a baby sloth. He deserves to live!”

Yet some calls for the bear’s death were not so light-hearted. Yesterday the Berlin Zoo received an anonymous note saying only, “Knut dies, Thursday noon.” Zoo officials say the threat was not taken seriously, and no additional security precautions were put in place, beyond Knut’s 15 full-time bodyguards. Thursday came and went with no attempts on the Bärchen’s life.

However, Dörflein, Knut’s full-time handler and surrogate father, says that despite the bear’s cuteness, even he wants to kill him sometimes, “I could throw him against the wall when everything comes together and he's shat all over his cage at three o'clock in the morning,” he told the Frankfurt’s Rundschau newspaper.

Dorflein, 43, has attracted his own following, mostly women. Knut is rarely seen outside the presence of his handler, who has been described by Der Spiegel as “bearded and tall … and a bit like a bear himself.” When Dörflein took a few days vacation at Easter, Knut became “visibly distressed,” said zoo officials, and he had to cut short his 3-day vacation and return to the zoo. “I coulda killed the little furball right then and there,” he said. “But he was just so darn cute!”

But the day will soon come when the bear is not so cute, nor friendly with humans, even his “father.” Polar bears hit puberty at about a year and soon after become too violent to be alone with humans. At two years, they are ready to mate. Most recently, the zoo in the western German city of Gelsenkirchen hinted that it would be interested in having Knut court two-year-old polar bear Lara. “In theory, he could already come here when he turns one,” a spokeswoman for the Gelsenkirchen Zoo told the news agency DDP. “That way we could produce a little Knut, Jr., every year or two and keep revenues up.”

*Article compiled from English-language storieson Der Spiegel … and a little of my own research.

Watch the music video “Cute Knut”:

Connected!

After two long, lonely months, I finally have Internet access at home. So those of you who are sick of hearing my excuses about “why I don’t write more often,” don’t worry; I’m out of excuses – except maybe for that backlog of e-mail and news and blogs I have to catch up on.

I know I moved to a foreign country and all, so I shouldn’t expect things to be the same as they are back home, but I really never thought that it could take so long to get connected. After moving into my Boston apartment, it took me three days to get Internet service. The day after moving into my Würzburg apartment, I marched myself down to the T-Punkt and signed up for the fastest router and the fanciest service plan that money could buy … and the sales lady told me it would take three weeks, “at the very least.”

I could not quiet find the right German words to express my shock and horror, but I think my face must have said it all. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” she told me (without looking the least bit sorry), “But unfortunately it cannot go any faster.”

In fact, it took five weeks. Five weeks of walking across town to the Internet café once a day, or even twice a day, rain or shine, barefoot, and uphill both ways. Upon hearing about my plight, a German friend recently said, “Isn’t it a shame how dependent we are on the Internet?” As if it were self-evident that we’d all otherwise be sitting in a café, reading a book, or enjoying the beauty of Nature.

“No, it most certainly is not a shame,” I wanted to say. “It is self-evident to me that the Internet is an amazing invention that makes our lives easier and more interesting; keeps us connected to friends, family, and world events; and allows us a creative forum for documenting our debacles in foreign lands. The only thing wrong with the Internet is not having enough of it.”

Not surprisingly, few Germans share that sentiment. What is surprising is how long they are willing to wait for pretty basic services. Kevin and I recently spent an hour trying to make eye contact with a waiter in order to pay our bill, and he’s like, “Where’s the rush?” Three months ago, I applied for a train pass. I’m still waiting for my train pass. Meanwhile, my nonrenewable, temporary pass has expired.

I say this is surprising because the Germans are not exactly famous for their patience. Queuing is a foreign concept in these parts, and the way they push on and off public transportation would make a New Yorker blush. Twice, on trips to France and Italy, I was nearly pushed into the Mediterranean by German tourists eager to get the best snapshot or the best seat on the water-taxi. And yet, they’ll wait three-to-five weeks to receive Internet service, when it need only take three days.

I have finally come to the conclusion that it all boils down to differences in value the two cultures place on the object for which they are waiting. For instance, there is no reason why a train pass cannot be issued at the local train station where it was purchased. It’s really nothing more than a simple magnetic ID badge, which any Student Services or Human Resources representative can make in about thirty seconds. However in Germany, your “application” must be sent to a central office where they lose your photo, unleashing a chain of snail mail correspondence that will never end.

But I think Germans are willing to wait three months for their train passes because they place a high value on the job security of the government bureaucrats who process their applications. (This is perhaps not surprising in a country with 14 percent unemployment). I also think it has something to do with the German love of “official-ness.” They really like those important looking stamps that they put on all “official” paperwork.

Similarly, I can imagine why Germans do not prize fast restaurant service. Here, the goal is not to eat, pay up, and leave; it is to sit for hours on a sunny terrace overlooking rivers and vineyards and castles, to eat, converse, and digest, to read a book, sip a cup of coffee, and soak up the beauty of a sunny afternoon. It’s kind of hard, but I am starting to get the hang of it. However, you can’t tell me that sitting in my pajamas at my own kitchen table eating a bowl of cold cereal and catching up on the latest celebrity gossip, doesn’t come in a close second.

Are we having fun yet?