It is amazing how truly ignorant you are about the life of a parent before you have kids of your own. How many of us have watched our friends or random strangers with their children and thought “Oh, when I have kids I will never do that.” I know I did. One of my dumbest comments ever was “My whole life isn’t going to change just because I have a kid.” Oh, how I laugh thinking about that now.

“I will still make time for my friends, go out & do things for myself”, I said. Well part of that was true. I do still try to make time for my friends, but Oh how things have changed.

This is what a Saturday night out with one of my friends looked like before and then after kids. We went from nursing beers to nursing babies. What a difference a year made.

This was just one of many changes in my life. I think one change that you will see in any household after having a child is the presence of cartoons & sing-alongs on the television set. I find myself at work singing the theme song to Little Einsteins, & humming the Hot Dog Dance. The Bubble Guppies & the clan at Mickey Mouse Clubhouse are regular guests in our home.

What I didn’t realize is how much it would affect my television viewing after she went to sleep. Programming that I once found desirable suddenly has become disturbing and offensive to me.

It was not unusual for my husband & me to have weekend long Law & Order marathons. Now I can barely watch an episode without cringing. I already have irrational fears when it comes to my child, so to see a program that centers around crimes that are often committed against children makes me sick to my stomach.

My husband & I were big into Breaking Bad. There was one episode that showed a 6 year old boy getting shot and killed while riding his bike. If you watched the show, I am sure you know the one. The image of it haunted me for days.

It is not just the crime dramas that I can no longer watch. I now find some of my old favorites such as Family Guy to be offensive. I realize many people have this feeling already, but the truth is even with all it’s political incorrectness & crude humor it was one of my favorites. I now have difficulty sitting through a full episode. Is it because I have so closely monitored inappropriate content for my daughter, that I no longer feel that I can watch it? I am not sure. All I know is that I am thankful for re-runs of The Big Bang Theory, because that seems to be the only thing that I find suitable for myself to watch these days, that and Sophia the First.