TV or not to be

Like a lot of mothers with three or more young children, I am something of a hypocrite. When my eldest was born, I swore he would never watch any television. None at all. No, not even a DVD created by educational experts with babies' developmental needs in mind. And definitely no purple dinosaurs or talking puppets. Television rots the mind and turns children into zombies, I would rant.

But short of throwing the television out (something for which my husband would never forgive me), a ban on television was never going to happen. Friends and other parents, with older children, would smile politely at my political-style outbursts, knowing what I did not know then: that children and television go together as naturally as children and messes.

My son did watch television in the first year of his life. He watches it now, as do his two younger siblings. It is a compromise between my husband, who is something of a television addict, and me, who would much rather be curled up on the sofa with a good book. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy a good television drama or comedy and am partial to a good film; but given the choice between the television or my extensive collection of books, the books win every time. That's exactly how I want to raise my children.

Our daughter regularly goes to bed hugging a book and often won't leave the house without one or several. Sometimes she gets out her little suitcase with wheels just to carry the books she wants to leave the house with, even when we are only going down the road to pick her big brother up from school.