The Perils of Thinking in Black and White

I keep hearing this guideline bandied around. To wit:

"According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)...children under age 2 should have no "screen time" (TV, DVDs or videotapes, computers, or video games) at all. During the first 2 years, a critical time for brain development, TV can get in the way of exploring, learning, and spending time interacting and playing with parents and others, which helps young children develop the skills they need to grow cognitively, physically, socially, and emotionally." ^[1]

Listen, I'm all for not parking the kid in front of the television and ignoring them. I think that's horrible. But isn't this going a little far? Let me explain.

See, I'm a typical American woman. I like a shower every single bleedin' day, and I like them after I've woken up but before I leave the house to do stuff. I am not a shower the night before kind of girl. If I tried that, I would honestly not leave the house and show the B the wide, wide world, because I would feel itchy and yukky whenever I did go out. Yes, this is a personal failing, I suppose, but there you go. I still want to shower in the same quadrant of the day that I did before we had the baby. There, I said it. I'm a monster.

There are days when the baby doesn't appear to agree with my need to do this, or when the timing of when I need to take the shower so that I'm not late to an appointment just doesn't happen to coincide with her being in a mood to play happily for 15 minutes in the exersaucer while I do what needs doin'. I have popped her in the exersaucer, her crib, or the playpen, only to have her literally scream, crying the entire time I was away. That can't be good, can it? If there was a safe, quick way to distract her for that period of time so she didn't spend it red-faced, gasping, and screaming, wouldn't that be better?

What I have found, however, is that if I take the portable DVD player and pop in one of the three HBO Kids DVDs I have (these, I think, are great, and the B appears to agree—she talks to them and points at the screen while they're on, and the high-quality music they use is the kind of stuff my classical music lovin' self would love for her to at least be comfortable with in later life) that will take that already-crying baby and make her calm and entertained while I shower, throw my hair back in a barette, get dressed, and pack her diaper bag.

She looks at me to check in while the DVD is playing (thanks to our glass shower enclosure in the master bath and her exersaucer in the master bedroom, she's completely in my line of sight the whole time) and laughs and smiles at me instead of screaming and crying because she's alone and sad.

Am I wrong here? Every day I try the exersaucer by itself and many days it works like a charm. She bats at the toys and interacts her little heart out, working on her gross and fine motor control like any well-brought up baby should. But those days, the ones when she just isn't interested and can't be distracted by play, is it so horrible that she spends fifteen minutes listening to music I think is great for her to be exposed to, watching animations of cute little babies and animals that she thinks are so amazing that she keeps looking for me so she can grin and babble her approval.

Is that really the worst thing that could be happening? I stopped working to stay home with her to make sure she got more one-on-one interaction as an infant than she would in a daycare. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, that's just what we decided to do.) I play with her, down on the blanket on the floor with her, handing her toys, playing peek-a-boo, or sit on the opposite side of her exersaucer while she bats at toys and encourage her. She literally gets hours of direct interaction with me and with a variety of toys every single day of her life since the moment we brought her home from the hospital. She gets time on her stomach, time encouraging her to try to crawl, time where I hold her steady as she stands and grins madly at me. We've played little games at every stage of her development so far, making them up as she became interested in new skills and was physically capable of doing them.

And yes, I won't deny it. When we play, there's usually music or the television on in the background. Sometimes she appears to notice it, but most of the time, she only notices it if the volume spikes suddenly, then she goes back to doing something much more interesting to her, like chewing on her foot. Interestingly, if a song comes on that I sing to her, she looks up and looks around, then looks and me expectantly until I start singing it. That floors me, that she can learn to associate specific music with me at such a young age. What having the 'background noise' does for me is engage the portion of my brain that would go to sleep handing her the same toy that she drops over the side of the exersaucer over and over again, letting me play that game and many others with her until she tires of it, instead of when I can't do it again without wanting to jump off the back deck.

The one thing I don't do is plunk her down in front of the thing, completely alone and for no real reason, and expect it to raise her for me. That's my job and my privilege and I don't intend to share it with an inanimate object.

So, is it evil? Will she have the horrible, miniscule attention span the AAP warns me against? Is she doomed to be sedentary and overweight because I do this? How long does she have to look at the screen before it alters her DNA and tears down all good things our hours upon hours of interaction has brought about? Is it instantaneous, like Peter Parker being bitten by the radioactive spider?

Is it just me, or is a blanket stricture like this going a little bit off the deep end? Is it so terrible to view it as another tool in the arsenal, to be used thoughtfully and responsibly when it does more good than harm? A tool, like every other, that can build if used responsively just as it can destroy good work if used recklessly?

Some days, I think the worst two words in the English language are "always" and "never".

[1] KidsHealth for Parents article, How TV Affects Your Child