I Can’t Afford TV — Cablevision Fears for My Children

As my foreclosure draws near, and money gets tighter, I am falling back on my last-resort options for saving funds.

I finally decided that I could no longer afford my $160 per month Cablevision bill, for internet, phone and television — I had some premium movie channels, but not all the premium movie channels.

I need the Internet to work and the phone to make me a legitimate human who can be contacted by schools and whatnot, but television? That I could do without.

I had lived without a television for years in my younger, single days in Manhattan. I read books and magazines, listened to music, went out with friends. I don’t remember missing it.

So I called Cablevision to cancel my television. I explained to the customer service rep that I would be moving in a few months, that my bill was too high and that I wanted the television service removed entirely.

He was shocked. He asked me if I had kids, and when I said yes he said, “Maybe you can live without the TV, but what about your kids?”

Of course, he was trying to prevent the loss of all of my business. He offered to downgrade me, getting rid of premium movie channels, but I still insisted on hearing what the price would be for no service at all versus the “family” service he was recommending, since I need to save as much money as possible.

He explained the differences, exclaiming periodically with emotional incredulity, “You have to think of your kids.”

I’ve had a semi-antagonistic attitude towards TV for my whole adult life — sort of like an ex-drinker has about a nice crisp martini. I’ve told my children they’re not allowed to watch TV at all during the week and I limit their TV on weekends (when they were younger they weren’t allowed to watch commercial TV at all – a restriction that’s become impossible to enforce). All of these limitations, and yet, on a bad day, I’ve been known to sit drooling in front of the thing for hours. Especially with the movie channels (I love movies). Television has made me a hypocrite.

Could my children really live without iCarly, The Simpsons, American Idol, Hannah Montana (ugh!), Phineas and Ferb, America’s Next Top Model (double ugh), Family Guy, South Park? (I would miss those last two).

My ten-year-old son attends a boarding choir school in Manhattan, and they watch no TV at all, only a movie on Friday nights. So he loves to plop down in front of the thing when he’s home. But he survives all week without it and seems to actually be happy.

I felt we could all, in fact, survive without it.

But the guy convinced me, through various financial incentives, to keep the cable box and the basic family channels. That way we should still have the History channel and National Geographic and the Science channels that the kids actually enjoy — and that I think aren’t going to turn their brains into mush. I’ll save fifty dollars a month, and if I need to save more I’ll cancel the rest.