Like most children of my generation, I grew up loving TV. To this day I vividly remember going to buy our new Zenith set at Macy's on 4th street in San Rafael. It was a big deal. My parents regarded it as a babysitter, and it became like a sibling or friend to keep me company. When I discovered reading I started to ignore my friend the TV, knowing I'd go back to it when I got eyestrain. In my 20s, I was too busy partying to watch TV, aside from The X Files, which I was so in love with I arranged to be ten minutes late for my 10 p.m. bartending shift every Friday so I didn't have to miss the ending.

The first year my husband and I lived together we didn't have cable. We actually talked and read instead. They were blissful days. After the crazy roommates and constant parties of our college years, the quiet of our first home together was paradise. I used to read a book or two a week. I can't even imagine it now.

Since bearing children and getting TiVo I'm ashamed to admit how much TV has become my social life again. When I'm too tired to read, there's something caressingly vegetative and rewarding about putting the kids to bed, cleaning up the dinner mess, then settling in for an evening of zoning.

To some extent, I blame TiVo. I used to hate commercials, which I now fast forward through. I never watch live TV. I'm also picky—I have my favorite shows and if they aren't on, I won't watch anything else. With TiVo, my shows are always on. TiVo is like a boyfriend who gives me what I want when I want it. I can boss TiVo around. I get more involved in my shows now, because if I set a season pass I don't miss any of the storyline, and end up following it with obsessive zeal.

I will die if I miss America's Next Top Model. I don't know why. Tyra Banks kind of bugs me, and I don't even look at fashion magazines, but I can't seem to take my eyes off the train wreck that is beautiful, bitchy girls vying to win the most superficial contest on television. When I'm feeling intellectual, I watch my man Alex Trebek on Jeopardy, and smugly congratulate myself when I shout the correct answer at the TV. Don't get me started on Lost! I am like a crack addict who's just gone to the dealer's house with a wad of money when it comes to that show. When I want to escape I pretend I'm on the Real World, or that I look like Terri Hatcher.

My husband will ask what I'm watching, and I hit pause so I don't miss anything, and then fill him in on a storyline or character's life like it's real. I will tell him about Gabby's miscarriage or Bree's drinking problem like the Desperate Housewives live on my street. I watch Intervention and cry at all the pain and suffering when reading the newspaper doesn't even make me cry. I depend on 60 Minutes and Frontline to tell me what to think of the world's events. I'm convinced one day Antiques Roadshow will feature an item that I have stuffed away in my closet and finally I'll be rich. I love to pick my friends and enemies for my own tribe in my head as I watch Survivor.

The reason I am so enslaved has really little to do with the shows themselves. I'm living vicariously. The stories, the characters, they are my window to the world, the people I empathize and identify with, and who make me laugh. There are days in a row where the only things that make me laugh out loud are Steve Carell, Family Guy, and Jon Stewart. I guess I'm lonely, and need an escape. I'm certainly not watching any shows about exhausted moms with messy houses, strained budgets, and testy husbands.

If I had my choice I'd be playing poker with my girlfriends, at a club flirting, traveling to tropical lands, or reading until dawn. Instead I'm in my house, tired, watching over my children. It's a place I love, but maybe not all the time. TV transports me to where I want to go. It's also the only time I have to myself most days. With my husband snoring on the couch, the kids asleep, the day almost done, evenings with the TV has become my "me" time.

I try to never watch my shows when the kids are still awake because I will ignore them. I get so sucked in it's disturbing because I will actually shush them if they talk over the TV. It's temporary insanity, especially considering TiVo lets me rewind. After the kids go to bed, my routine with my husband is kind of pathetic as well, since I ignore him too and he falls asleep no more than twenty minutes into any show. Then I'm happy because it's just me and my boyfriend the TV, uninterrupted in our tryst.

After my parents abuse of the electronic babysitter, I am sensitive about my kids watching too much TV. The commercials and marketing aimed at them bugs me, but TiVo lets me fast forward through commercials. I also want them to move their little bodies and be kinesthetic and creative, so they have a maximum they can watch daily. Still, it is so great to have all their favorite shows recorded on those days I can't deal; when I'm sick or on deadline or having a mini-meltdown. Now I can string out the shows until I can pull it together. I rely on this tool. I remember having a horrible stomach flu once when Isabella was a baby, and she watched every Baby Einstein ever published.

A few times, usually in summer when there's lots to do outside, I have made the bold, radical suggestion of cancelling cable. I decide I want to break up with my boyfriend, who demands so much of my time, and write that book I've been meaning to start on. The few times I made the suggestion, my husband looked at me like I suggested selling the kids. It was too much for him—he could hardly discuss it. He was deeply disturbed. He didn't even say no, he just looked at me like why, why would you do something so crazy! So maybe the TV is his girlfriend.

One day I'll break up with the TV. I'll find the strength and bid it adieu. When life slows down, the kids are grown, I'm back to part-time work, and my social life is flourishing. My husband and I will travel, take classes together, have dinner parties. I'll write, paint, do yard work, and reflect fondly of the days when my life was reduced to survival mode. It seems inconceivable now, but there may come a time I miss experiencing the world through such a simple reality.

Maybe my TV friends are all I can handle right now. Their superficial yet complex lives are entrancing enough, but I can forget about them when I turn the TV off and it's okay. With my husband, children, and work wanting a piece of me morning, noon, and night, my TV friends don't need me. I'm so tired, so busy, and craving so much more in my life much of the time, how can I comfortably invest in someone else's? I can't even have a conversation with friends when my kids are around I get interrupted so often. My home can be a lonely place even when it's filled with family. My boyfriend the TV keeps me company.