TV Can Be a Good Parent
- Ariel Gore
As a single working mother, Gore defends television and thinks that it can be a good parent. She is surrounded by a host of problems and she cannot be a stay–at–home mother. She shows how TV can be useful for working mothers like herself who can spend sufficient time with children. When she needed time for herself she found that the TV programs like Big Bird and Barney the Dinosaur a better parents than herself. TV has been a helpful co-parent.
She cites the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) report that states she is doing her daughter an injustice every time she lets her watch TV, babies and toddlers need direct interaction with parents for healthy brain growth and for cognitive skills, exposing young children to television should be discouraged. Gore analyses the report and defends herself: She admits that babies and toddlers have a critical need for direct interaction with actual people. However, she disagrees with the view that children should not be exposed to television. She thinks that sticking them in front of the TV all day and all night should be discouraged but watching kids don’t interact with their parents is a false assumption.
She also criticizes AAP’s view that young children should not watch TV at all and its recommendation that the paediatrician view that TV is not the best learning tool and it can be interactive. She is not ready to accept the assumption that TV watching kids don’t interact with their parents