how many tvs do you have in your home?

[AnnieW625]

We only have one TV in our living room. It has cable, and a DVR. DH doesn't believe that TV belongs in the bedrooms and I am fine with that as I grew up in a house with only one tv.

Also does only having one TV affect you or your child's viewing habits?

For us it's a great way to compromise what we watch and how much time we spend watching TV. DD gets to watch about 30 minutes to an hour at the very most in the AM while DH and I are getting ready for work. Same in the PM when I am fixing dinner. My DD also knows who Homer Simpson is and I am not sure whether or not I should embarrased by that or not since DH is a huge Simpsons fan and will still watch it almost nightly.

[brittone2]

One teensy 13 inch with a built in DVD player (and it is a tube TV, not a flat screen ;) we're so high tech ;) ) upstairs and primarily only used when the kids are in bed. I'm a night owl so I'll watch at night...DH goes to bed a little earlier because he gets up really early.

We gave my parents our 32" tube TV (but so fancy LOL ;) ...it at least had the flatter type fo screen before "real" flatscreens came out) when we moved. We stopped watching most TV when our kids arrived and didn't want to have to find a place to put it. So they inherited it from us ;) Even they are ready to upgrade, which makes me LOL since they have never had cable in any of their homes and aren't particularly into having the best, biggest, greatest or latest of anything.

eta: I don't like having a TV in the bedroom particularly, but I prefer it out of sight, out of mind most of the time. My kids watch almost no TV, but they don't really ask to either. I think part of it is that the TV isn't in our main living space. On occasion I let them watch something less commercialized...they saw Fraggle Rock on DVD recently ;) They probably only watch something once every week or two.

[wellyes]

1 in the living room. I'd prefer to have a separate TV room (in a finished basement, ideally) away from where we socialize and read but our house is just a little Cape Cod.

[aks226]

We have several TVs in the house, but I use them mostly for noise. We have one in the office that we watch mostly for news and use it for movies.

My husband is a big TV watcher, but without kids in the house I don't worry about it too much.

[arivecchi]

We have 4. One hidden in a cabinet in the living room, a gigantic one in our basement, a teeny one in our office and one in a cabinet in the MB. We only have plasmas b/c I did not want a bulky TV falling on one of the kids. We use the one in the basement the most because of the comfy couch there. ;)

[mommylamb]

We live in a 3 floor town house and we have one on each floor (one in our bedroom, one in our family room on the middle level and one in our down stairs den).

[la mama]

We have one in our living room and the other one is in DH's "man cave" so he can play video games, we don't use it for watching TV.

[citymama]

I was torn between 0 and 1. We have one, non-functional TV in our bedroom*. It is non-functional in that it gets no reception - even prior to the digital switch, it got only marginal TV reception from 2 network channels. We've never had cable. The only purpose the TV serves is to work with our DVD player, for DH and I to watch the occasional movie on our Netflx queue! I definitely see the difference as DD doesn't associate the TV with watching anything, doesn't know how to turn it on - unlike most of our friends and family whose kids rule the TV.

*our bedroom is the only place to tuck away our ugly, ancient TV which has got to be replaced one of these days, if only b/c I think it's an earthquake hazard!

DD does know that my laptop can play Nick Jr though! ;)

[Joolsplus2]

Family living room
Formal living room (but not hooked to cable or used)
Master bedroom
Boy's room
Girls' room

I refuse to let DH get more for the finished attic, guest room, or playroom :nono:

Leah loves the Simpsons...we watch it on hulu.com (er, we have probably more computers than TV's, lol).

[sidmand]

Well, none of the categories really fit. We have more than two but we don't have one in every room. We have one in our bedroom that's virtually nonfunctional but I would/will never have any in the DC's bedrooms. I think we still have five TVs though. At least those that are actually plugged in.

[HIU8]

We have 3. One in the family room. One in the kitchen mainly used for news (it's seriously old and will not be replaced when it finally kicks). One in the mb.

[WatchingThemGrow]

One 26"er in the living room with $11 cable and TiVo. It's so old it doesn't have the ability to hook up to a DVD player, which is rather irritating. There have been a lot of times I would have loved to pop in one of the few DVDs we have. I do have some because we watch them on the laptop when I trim finger/toenails on Fridays.

The ILs gave us $$ for a new TV, but then changed it to "okay, get a tv or buy yourself some extra hands for taking care of all your kids." So far, we've only bought help in the form of a mother's helper, a house keeper, a babysitter a couple times, etc. I still long for a big tv that can play a DVD, though!

Having the tv on nonstop drives me crazy :dizzy:

During the last few months of this pg and the first couple months of DS2's life, we've relied a lot on Tivo to calm the air here so I could nurse w/o torturous things going on in the next room.

[egoldber]

we have probably more computers than TV's

LOL! So do we. By several factors. :ROTFLMAO:

[niccig]

One in the family room, we have one in our bedroom, and an old one in the garage to watch DVDs when we work out. DS will NEVER have one in his room. I'm very against that.

DH and I do watch a lot of TV - he has to for his work. He works in the entertainment industry and part of his job is staying up to date on shows and music. If someone else has used a song for a TV show or commercial, he can't use it for his work. He was POed with an Apple commercial 2 years ago as they used a song he had used. He had to redo all his work, and the client would not have been impressed if he wasn't aware that Apple was using the song.

[lorinick]

Family room, kitchen and master bedroom. We don't allow them in our nine year olds room. But that is more my dh at this time. I think at nine it would be fine. I'm thinking of putting one in the bathroom.

[JBaxter]

52IN HD in living room
52in in basement entertainment area
27 in for ps3 in another area of finished basement

32 in in my bedroom

[daniele_ut]

We have a TV in the living room that will move to the basement media room when it gets finished in the next few months. It is a 42" LCD. In anticipation of the TV moving downstairs I asked dh for a small TV for the kitchen so I can watch TV while cooking and the kids can watch while I get ready for work. I have a 19" Vizio on the counter in there.

[mommyp]

We have one in the living room. It is an old 27" tube TV, and is hooked up to a DVD player since we like movies (more than TV mostly). Like wellyes, I wish we had somewhere else to put it, but we have a small house. For a few years we had a small one in the bedroom, but when we moved to CA we sold it on Craigslist and we don't miss it at all.

We don't have it on during the day, only after DD is in bed. She doesn't watch it. A couple times when we were having a rough day, I put on a Sesame Street episode from PBSkids on demand. (She knows who the characters are from some books we have and her diapers, LOL). She loved it and danced, but for days after kept asking "Watch Big Bird, watch Elmo" and I don't really want it to be a regular thing at this point.

[elliput]

One TV in the great room/living room. I'd love to get a projection TV for the playroom downstairs and move the Wii down there.


(er, we have probably more computers than TV's, lol).
We definitely have more computers than TV's- 5 working and 3 are in the same room as the TV. :ROTFLMAO:

[g-mama]

We have 5.

Sometimes, I wonder in what ways, exactly, do I really belong on this board. ;)

[SnuggleBuggles]

Own 2 but #2 is hardly ever used. It's in my room and I only watch when cleaning in there.

Beth

[tarahsolazy]

We have one, and have agreed that we will remain a one TV family for the duration. We do use computers a lot, though. Our TV is a 27 in tube TV DH bought in med school. We have a 2000 era old-school Tivo and basic DirecTV. My kids definitely do watch TV, though, I have only limited shame about that.

[vludmilla]

2 small 19 inch tube style tv's. We don't have cable--just whatever broadcast channels we can get with our digital antenna. We don't watch much, mostly reruns of Seinfeld or the Simpson late at night. We do tend to watch Frontline and some other PBS shows, occasionally the British crime series or some such.

[g-mama]

Why does it seem that so many people feel like they need to justify having TV at all? As in, "I have 1 (or 2)...but I *hardly ever* watch it. I swear."

Is it really so shameful?

[maestramommy]

We only have one TV in our living room. It has cable, and a DVR. DH doesn't believe that TV belongs in the bedrooms and I am fine with that as I grew up in a house with only one tv.

Also does only having one TV affect you or your child's viewing habits?

that is us, only w/o the cable.

[brittone2]

Why does it seem that so many people feel like they need to justify having TV at all? As in, "I have 1 (or 2)...but I *hardly ever* watch it. I swear."

Is it really so shameful?

I don't think it is shameful. The reality for us is we have one TV and it is basically never on except after 10pm.

The OP asked if having one TV etc affected your viewing habits. For us, I think it does help to have it out of sight, out of mind. My 5 year old has grown up mostly TV-free/very minimal TV, but I can guess that if we had it in our main living area he'd bug to watch...whereas right now he doesn't say a word about it. I like it that way...for me not having TV makes us all happier and we find more time to do other stuff. But I don't think anyone is saying hang your head in shame if you are happy with your 5 TVs :hug:

[smiles33]

Does it count if the TV is in storage? :) We have a scary number of TVs but only one is used (the one in the family room). It's more of a disposal issue for us as I should just donate them as I'm not sure if any of them could actually be sold. DH has one sitting on the floor of his den (it used to be our family room one, an old heavy one at 32") but he's rarely in there. We have a tiny b/w one (6"?) his grandparents used to keep in their kitchen and gave to us (now in a storage closet). We have two more upstairs in the bonus room: a slightly bigger one (12" or so?) that DH had from college and a 20" one I had from law school. We're rarely in that room, too. We don't keep TVs in any of the bedrooms as we prefer to watch downstairs in the family room. If anyone ever collects TVs from the curbside, I'd probably get rid of them except for the family room one.

[sidmand]

We have 5.

Sometimes, I wonder in what ways, exactly, do I really belong on this board. ;)

As I'm typing this, DCs are in the other room watching Little Einsteins...

I have ALWAYS had the TV on as background noise. ALWAYS. I have a TV in my office (work at home) because I can't stand how quiet it is. I can't just sit and watch a show though (part of my multitasking nature, I'm not sure how I manage movies in theaters!). It drives DH batty because I'm always asking what just happened. He is way more into DCs not watching as much TV. I agree in principle but reality is quite different. And I've finally decided that I either need to stop feeling guilty about it or stop doing it and the stop feeling guilty is winning!!

The only thing I've never done is watch TV to go to sleep though. Not sure why. DH likes to but I don't and I don't really like having TVs in bedrooms at all. Part of that is just how i grew up too. And I don't plan to have computers in their rooms either. I guess when we had a smaller house we had a TV in every room. And once in a hotel room there was a TV in the bathroom. I thought that was the coolest thing ever!

[kijip]

We have 1 19 inch TV/DVD combo but it does not get reception and we do not have cable. We use it to watch DVDs and play Wii. So while we have a TV, we don't get television programming. I voted 1 TV. Sometimes it will be used a fair bit and other, long periods it just functions as space filler. We have it in an enclosed cabinet with our CD changer and record player.

[scrooks]

DD is watching Sesame Street right now...
I am a little bit ashamed. She watches it daily now. Usually an hour in the morning (all PBS kids) and maybe 30 min to an hour at night. I fear it will be more when DS arrives. I really want to cut her back but DH and I do enjoy our TV.

We have a 46" in the family room. A 32" in our bedroom and 2 in guest rooms (1 of which is going into storage in the basement as 1 guest room has recently become DD's new room) and 1 in the basement. We use 2 of them regularly (fr and MB).

[Piglet]

We have 1 TV and I am totally fine with just the 1, since I don't like TVs or computers in the bedroom. Sadly (for me) we haven't hooked it up to cable - it is jst for the Wii. I grew up with a nightly TV ritual and I miss it tremendously. DH thinks TVs are time sucks (true) but for me it is all part of my evening relaxation. FTR, it doesn't bother me that my kids used to ask to watch TV when they came home from school - I think it is a nice way to unwind for them too. Now they just bug us to play Wii, which isn't such an improvement, I think. And as for DH's theory that we would be more productive without TV? It has just been replaced by the computer - not any better?!

[MelissaTC]

We have a 52 inch flat screen in our family room, 32 inch flat screen in my living room and another in our bedroom. There is an old school 19 inch in an extra bedroom that was put in there for visiting inlaws. I generally have the tv on for background noise most days. We watch The Today Show in the morning. We went without a tv in our bedroom for about 6 months or so and we totally missed it!

[oneplustwo]

We have a 20-something tube TV in what we call the playroom -- a small room off of the kitchen. No cable, just an HDTV converter box and little rabbit ears. I just realized the kids haven't watched any TV shows on it in months -- just the occasional videos we borrow from the library, and a Red Sox game every now and then with DH. I was a little worried when we had DD's 8th birthday party last weekend that some of the girls would not be interested in watching a movie on our low-tech set-up (a lot of people in our area have amazing TV theater rooms in their homes) but it wasn't an issue at all during the "half sleepover" party. Phew!

[maestramommy]

We have 5.

Sometimes, I wonder in what ways, exactly, do I really belong on this board. ;)

I hope you're not serious, cause I LOVE reading your posts!:hug:

[ast96]

We have three, but we have a tiny house.

I love TV. I worked in television. I grew up in a house with 22 television sets -- literally one in every room, including bathrooms and laundry room and the car. I had cable in my bedroom before I could read. And yet I grew up to be an English major at an Ivy League university. Therefore, I don't stress about TV.

Now video games? That's a whole other story.

[ThreeofUs]

We own two, but one is hidden in a back bedroom and only used for VHS tape playing. The other is in our sunroom and is used for DVDs and the daily Arthur.

We don't have cable, we don't even have good TV reception, and we don't have video games.

[MamaKath]

My real answer would be "too many!" We have 3- one with bare min channels in the living room, one with bare min channels in the family room, one with lots of channels in our bedroom. I think we will be back down to 2 later this week though as we just discussed taking the bedroom one out to help with sleeping. It will probably go into the family room.

I do have to say I am pretty mortified when I have students with sleep issues (that are causing issues with their education) whose parents say they get up and turn on/watch tv most of the night in their rooms, yet refuse to take the tv out of the child's bedroom. I kind of wish we didn't have any in our house for that matter.

[justincase]

We have our main one downstairs in the semi-finished part of the basement. And a tiny one also downstairs in the unfinished part of the basement, by the treadmill.

We've lived in this house two years and before that were in an apartment where the TV was right in the central living space. I do find that "out of sight, out of mind" applies. We have to deliberately choose to go downstairs and turn it on. It took me a while to get used to it.

Pre-DH, I had one in my bedroom and woke up to it every morning and went to sleep to it every night. I sometimes miss drifting off to a favorite comforting movie...

[o_mom]

Two that are plugged in and working, one that is unplugged sitting on a table waiting for me to figure out how to get rid of it. The one in the family room is a large flat panel that DH just got... I love the picture, but it does dominate the room. Kids don't watch much TV even though it is there.

The second one is in the basement playroom. Very occasionally it gets watched down there - maybe once a month or so we will have a movie down there when cousins are over or a kid's show. Slightly more often during football season when DH has the big TV occupied. That one is an older 32" tube set.

[kayte]

Also does only having one TV affect you or your child's viewing habits?



My interpretation of this question (as others have asked why it would matter) is that if you have a tv in every room sometimes people watch different things at the same time, alone.

And to answer that--we don't watch tv in separate rooms--- I think if we are going to do it--then we should decide on something together. I have a friend whose family does do it --2 adults and 5 children will be home at the same time, all watching tv, all alone in separate rooms.

We have three...
One big one in the media room upstairs. It gets used on weekends in the fall --football Saturday and Sunday-- it is pretty much on all weekend but only in the fall. ANd we have big group of football watching friends--and there are always a few spare families here and something on the grill. Other than that it gets used for some shows during the week --right now none since it's repeats only--but during the tv seasons 3 shows a week (Grey's Anatomy, Lost, Fringe). It has a DVD and DVR. DH and I also watched some older shows on DVD-- The SHield, The Wire , after they were over. The media room is the only room upstairs, DD and I rarely go up there during the week.

We have one in our kitchen--there is a built in area with a space for a tv. It is not used. We did watch a good bit of primary and election coverage because it is the only tv in the main living area of the house. Bu not much since last November. In fact I just got the remote down a few days ago and it was coated in a disgusting layer of dust. Yuck.

ANd there is one in our MB. We watch Discovery channel, science channel, PBS, etc.. some evenings and DH will put on the golf channel if I am reading. It has DVD player built in and that's where DD occasionally watches Signing Time and her new interest Fraggle Rock. (2-3 times a week)

[jent]

I definitely see the difference as DD doesn't associate the TV with watching anything, doesn't know how to turn it on - unlike most of our friends and family whose kids rule the TV.

Yep. Our 1 TV is in the living room, but it's never on. I still smile at the time my mom asked me how our VCR worked. She was babysitting DD one afternoon and was sure DD wanted to watch TV b/c she kept poking at the VCR slot. Umm, no, I'm not sure it's even hooked up anymore (we only watch the occasional DVD). She just likes playing with the slot.

ETA:
1. I do limit our TV watching since I realized that endless channel surfing was a big time suck. Now we just watch our shows or movies, but somehow that dwindled. Unfortunately, computers have replaced the TV as my time-suck. I'm still working on that one.

2. While I always wanted to limit TV for DD, I didn't necessarily plan to "forbid" TV. But somehow I find that we just don't miss it and at this stage it seems strange to schedule it in. DD has been exposed to kids TV at others' houses. Sometimes she seem interested, often not (and once, upset, by show that my dad assumed would entertain the kids just because it was Disney). I don't necessarily look down on my friends/relatives who do use the TV.

[Happy 2B mommy]

We have 3, which is silly because we watch very little TV. Our "big" tv is a 10 year old 24 inch tube that's locked in a cabinet in the living room. Almost never watch it as DD's bedroom is really close.

DH has one in his office in the basement. It's 18 years old 13 inch. DH likes background noise while working and DH's office is where we have the treadmill, so it's watched while we use the treadmill.

We have a new 19 inch LCD in the kitchen with a built in DVD player and that's used the most. Sometimes I like to have something on while I clean up/am on the computer/pay bills etc and DD is napping. Occassionally while I'm trying to get dinner ready and DD is being too 'helpful' I will let her watch a DVD. The kitchen is where DH and I watch TV in the evening after DD goes to bed because she can't hear it like she can the one in the living room. That being said, I unplugged it on Thursday because I needed the outlet and it's still not plugged back in...

[egoldber]

We have 2 functional and 1 non-functional (and no, I don't know why DH won't get rid of it, sigh). We have a large one in our great room/family room and one in our bedroom. DH and I occasionally watch the Daily Show before going to bed, but most of our TV watching is downstairs. And even then, there are some days it is on all day and some days we only turn it on for half an hour. In general, I'm the one saying "Do you want to watch a show?" because I need a break. :tongue5: DH is a huge TV watcher, but I wouldn't even turn it on for myself most days.