When I was a kid, for a number of years we did not have a TV. My dad decided that television was unimproving and so he threw ours over the second floor balcony. He was dramatic and a little bit crazy. But he was also right. Television really is just a brain drain and current marketing attempts to convince us that our children are practically attending preschool while watching Dora the Explorer are just plain false.

However, at the same time, TV does have its own special purpose. It is your very own around-the-clock, low-budget babysitter. You will have to pay the cable bill, but you won't have to worry about whether the teenager you hired is eating up all your food and bringing her boyfriend over while she “watches” your children.

When you are a new parent, you have lots of fantasies about how you are going to limit your child's future TV consumption. A very strict diet of low fat, high quality, gluten free, educational programming for your little darling. Limited to one half-hour per day, and 45 minutes on weekends. You will browse the kids' channels while your toddler is sleeping, making thoughtful decisions about which shows are most stimulating and appropriate for him to watch. You will take the time to preview any DVD that you are given to make sure it is worthy of your child's viewing pleasure.

At first, you will be stringent in your TV regimen. You will not vary from your upstanding morals and purist beliefs. But slowly, slowly, as your child gets older, you will begin to stray. One Saturday, while you are trying to do yoga and simultaneously cook breakfast, 30 minutes will turn into an hour. And then, while you are lying in the corpse pose and feeling quite relaxed all sprawled out on your kitchen floor, somehow it will become an hour and a half. Wouldn't it feel great to send a coherent email to a friend, just this once? Before you know it, two hours have passed and you are feeling semi-human again.

It's a slippery slope once you fall off the TV Restriction Wagon. The next thing you know, your kids are watching two hours of TV a day and 90% of it is Sponge Bob.

But that's when you realize, Sponge Bob is not the inane lunatic you once thought. Or maybe he is, but he's really, really funny. And if you have to hear the Blue's Clues theme song one more time, you'll probably go insane anyway, so in the long run, watching Sponge Bob is really better for your children.

By the time you have your second or third child, it's all over. No more Baby Einstein or Barney. At 6 months old, he'll be strapped into the bouncy chair watching Spy Kids and The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl with the rest of the big kids. And, most likely, loving it too.