Have you ever gone to bed at night and just felt that your day wasn't well-spent? You have this list of stuff that you would love to do, including simple things, like playing board games with your kids, or taking a walk with your hubby, but it never seems to happen.
A few years ago I was feeling like this quite a bit. But I was also feeling depressed a lot when I went to bed, especially on Thursdays.
And then one night it hit me. On Thursdays I watched ER. And that was a depressing show!
Around that time I read the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Great book! Not written from a Christian perspective, but with truths about human nature and family that are truths nonetheless.
And one thing he said that really stuck with me is that we can divide everything up into four categories, based on whether things are Important or Urgent. So you have your Important/Urgent, like going into labour, having your son arrested, having your husband walk out. Then you have your Urgent/Not Important, like answering the telephone, even if you're reading to your kids. And there's your Not Important/Not Urgent, which is basically your time wasters, like television and video games. This is where we spend most of our time.
But the time that really matters is in the Important/Not Urgent category. This is stuff that is so important to do, but there's nothing pushing you to do it. Stuff like spending time with your children, spending time with God, spending time with your hubby. And if we don't do these things, then we're going to find there are more crises in our lives.
The more we do these important things, the fewer problems we will have.
 And I read that, and looked around at my life, and realized I as wasting most of it on TV. At that time, my husband wasn't home a lot. He was doing his residency, and I was often home alone with the babies. The TV became my lifeline. But I realized it wasn't a good one, so I quit watching, cold turkey. It's been 10 years, and I don't miss it at all. And I was a soap opera addict, drama addict, everything addict.
To a certain extent, blogs have replaced TV, and I have to be careful I don't let that take over. But it's a step I've never regretted making.
My children aren't into TV. They play instead. My husband and I do stuff together. And it's wonderful.
If your hubby would never consent to getting rid of TV, you can still stop watching yourself. But I'd encourage you to think about it. TV wrecks family life. Why let it into your house in the first place?
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TV really only "wrecks family life" if you are one of the people that doesn't know where the off button is or how to use it. We don't have cable, but do let our kids watch dvd's and things like that. But the thing can be switched off and unplugged without very much effort at all.