Captain Oblivious

Every now and then I'm reminded of how much TiVo changes our lives. There are a lot of reasons to love TiVo (I'll babble about what an amazing improvement it makes in the life of a sports fan some other time), but the one I'm most often thankful for is the difference it makes as a parent.

Yeah, yeah, I can hear you now. What kind of a moron uses a TV to help raise their child, much less a PVR? Not this kind, so back off (although, actually, anybody who wants to pick a fight about childcare with my wife the pediatrician is more than welcome - just give me enough advance warning so I can sell tickets to your butt-kicking, 'cause to steal a line from The American President, she's way out of your league...). I'm not talking about the TV-as-babysitter epidemic. I'm talking about shows you can watch with your child, shows that teach or reinforce other lessons you're already working on: Sesame Street, undoubtedly the best children's television show in history, teaches everything from reading and counting to morality and manners; and Dora the Explorer has my two year old daughter counting en espanol and her Spanish vocabulary is already better than most American adults (granted, that isn't saying much, but she's 2, people). These are the shows I mean when I talk about using TiVo for my daughter.

So, ok, those of you who don't have TiVo, or don't have children, are probably wondering why a high-tech VCR makes a difference to a parent. The reason is painfully simple. We've programmed the TiVo to record Sesame Street and Dora whenever they're on, so whenever we choose to watch one of those shows with our daughter, there's one available. Always. Doesn't matter what time it is. We don't have to arrange our lives around the TV schedule (can you say "On Demand"? I thought you could...), and we never let our daughter see a commercial. We can even choose to watch a particular episode if there happens to be one available that's relevant to our lives - and with several to choose from at any time, there usually is. Of course, there are drawbacks to this - my daughter thinks that's the way all TVs work, so she was very confused when we visited a cousin. He was watching TV, and my daughter asked if they could watch Dora instead (since he was staring at mindless blather, that would have been a good thing). It took quite a while to explain that her cousin's TV didn't have Dora inside of it the way ours does.

One note about TiVo for those of us who are both sports fan(atic)s and parents: this device can save your sanity AND make you a better parent. How many times when you were growing up did you try to interrupt your Dad while he was watching "the game" only to be told, with a fair amount of irritation, to come back later? Well, guess what? That never has to happen if you, the parent, have a TiVo. Your child needs some attention in the middle of the Red Sox game? You hit the pause button. You don't miss any of the game (and if you did, you can rewind it back), so you're not irritated. Your child doesn't get the brush off, so they don't have to deal with the emotional trauma of the rejection (kidding, mostly, but only as a matter of degree - it's NOT all right to blow off your kids). I have no idea why TiVo doesn't have a "Before and After" ad campaign running on this subject, because it is truly a no-brainer. If you're a sports fan who has kids, you absolutely, positively have to get TiVo.

Of course, if you're a Red Sox fan, you may want to get the special Boston Edition, which has selective memory - it only saves games the Sox won, it thinks the baseball season ends in September, and its programming guide refuses to admit that the Yankees exist. Helps keep the fan suicide levels low...