Why I cannot turn off TV when working (or napping, or relaxing-you get the picture)

Today while I was sitting at the computer and watching a “true crime” show on TV, I had a flashback. I saw a scene that was so old- but so connected with today. Me, at 6 or 7, being tempted by my grandmother to come into her apartment and watch TV with her INSTEAD of going outside to do my chores. This has been what my love affair with having the constant current barrage of TV was about.

When I was younger, and still counted my age in single digits, my grandmother on my father’s side had an apartment (is that what you call an addition with a living room, kitchen, bathroom and upstairs bedroom?) along side the house. A door that connected the two was in the kitchen, and led into my grandmother’s living room. If you haven’t read my information much, let me inform you that I was raised on a farm. Not just a “farm” but also a livestock farm that contained dairy cows, calves, pigs, chickens, cats, basically animals abounding from every orifice of the property. I was sick as a young child, but it wasn’t too long before I had to go outside and perform “chores”. This started with feeding calves milk out of pails, helping my mother put together the milkers for the evening milking and feeding sick & lame hogs that they put in with the dairy cattle. So I would get home from school, be able to grab a snack and then go out and help my mother with the milkers or whatever. My grandmother’s apartment might as well have been on the moon, the vibration and atmosphere was so different.

I was only allowed to watch two hours of TV, and had to do chores for at least 2 hours at night. My grandmother would open the door when I was having my snack, and ask me to come out and keep her company. More than that, she would say, “forget about your chores, stay out here and watch TV with me”. She would ply me with Reese’s peanut butter cups out of the freezer, round ice cubes, and ENDLESS TV. She would again say, “watch this show with me. You won’t get in trouble, you’d be with me!” Of course, I knew this wasn’t true. I knew that I would get in trouble, big trouble if I wasn’t out there putting the milkers together- they couldn’t start milking until I did, and someone would come and look for me, maybe not in that happy of a mood.

That little girl is pissed off that she couldn’t go out, sit with my grandmother and watch ENDLESS TV. I did not get to do what I wanted to do as a child, and that child is still with me. She is the one who is petulant about not getting what she wants. What she wants? She wants to be able to watch TV more than 2 hours a day, Chores, career, friends be damned. She had to work before she wanted to, did not get to do what she wanted. The child wants what the child wants, that is one thing you will learn when you look at this inner child work. But, as my instructor told me, they should never be allowed to use the checkbook or have the keys to the car: again.

Check in for following updates, I will tell you how I handle this petulant child, and integrate her into present time.