I've found that simply living comfortably without a TV in the house, and enjoying our rich life, made our life outside of the child-marketing world easier and very fulfilling. I have a very ironic relationship to all this as my father directed TV commercials for a living and dislieks most commercial TV - and I just don;t enjoy TV watching anyway. (I like non-commercial radio, always have.)

though I;ve been a back-to-the-lander when I was younger, we live in a major city, and take good advantage of the cultural and natural resources around us. even when you don;t have much money, and we have been quite por at times and still don;t have much to spare,there are all kinds of museums, parks and botanical gardens, libraries, and all sorts of ways to keep yourselves entertained and educated.

before I had my child, I watched many well-meaning parents constantly plan and negotiate "appropriate" vs. "inappropriate" TV - what hours were acceptable, which types of programs, whether they must turn off the TV when commercials came on, having family discussions about what it might mean when a character does this or that or what kinds of messages were being sent with somebody's clothing or whether the kinds of food so-and-so ate are really good for you - what a waste of time and energy, IMHO!
I am deeply concerned about what the deregualrion of the airwaves meant for children's programming, and for broadcast media in general. on the other hand, I can;t find myself getting overly drawn to roups such as Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood, because I hoesntly think the best solution is to keep yourselves busy with rading, playing games, cooking, swimming, and the other things people sued to do to fill their time when there was no television, r at least very little.

TV was not "forbidden fruit" and Lia occasionally watched a program at her dad's house or with a friend; it simply didn't have much power over her because it had o pwer in our home, which is where kids learn their values, I believe. it;s the parents who can;t wait to tuck the kids into bed so they can watch :"their" adult programs and videos who seem to get into the TV battles. just like diet - urging your kid to eat healthy food does far less than letting them see you eat and enjoy a variety of healthy food.

just my own experience...PS my child is now in high school, catches a few old, fairly intelligent shows she likes on the Internet, but really isn;t very commercially driven in her tastes about anything, which is good because I still can;t afford to indulge the barrage of brand-namecrap they want to market to teens...you don't have to move away to a remote mountaintop to cut lose of the commercial clutter and pitches.