cover image The Big Turnoff: Confessions of a TV-Addicted Mom Trying to Raise a TV-Free Kid

The Big Turnoff: Confessions of a TV-Addicted Mom Trying to Raise a TV-Free Kid

Ellen Currey-Wilson, . . Algonquin, $24.95 (339pp) ISBN 978-1-56512-539-1

Currey-Wilson decides in the early stages of her pregnancy that her child will grow up without television so the family can form stronger emotional ties; the only problem is that she herself is totally addicted to the tube. She does manage to cut down her viewing after her son's birth, taking her vigilance in maintaining his abstinence to extremes. She panics when she brings Casey to a friend's house and finds a television on. She grants him permission to watch the Olympics, then leaps in front of the set to block the commercials. But when her son doesn't play with his classmates, her fear runs in the opposite direction—should she have let him watch TV so he'd be able to fit in with other kids? Currey-Wilson's vocal, earnest hostility to mainstream culture (even when she's basking in sitcoms) sometimes makes it hard to sympathize, except that she's also bracingly up-front about her insecurities and petty jealousies. And her anti-TV crusade becomes much less simplistic as she reveals how much she's still playing out the dramas of her own childhood. Curry-Wilson writes with self-effacing humor, and any mom can identify with her sincere effort to give her child the best she can. (Apr. 20)