ROUND-UP: The Magic of Watching TV as a Family During the Summer

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One of my most cherished memories of childhood summers is watching TV with my siblings and parents.

I understand this isn’t the kind of wholesome, dopamine-addiction resisting, independence-building, outdoors risk-taking activity that is promoted by the parenting gurus of our age. And yet what to do with this memory of feeling deeply alive and connected while sitting in front of the TV in an air-conditioned room with a bag of pretzels and some lemonade?

Using my memory as a compass, I plan on watching a good amount of television and movies with my kids this summer.

The first reason has to do with bodies. When I sit with my kids, husband and dog on the couch, our bodies inevitably touch. We then up the contact with heads on shoulders, legs tangled under a blanket, and so on.

Our culture often overlooks the power of embodied connection in parenting in favor of psychological and intellectual connection—and control. But just being together as physical beings, reminded of flesh and warmth, is a deeply sustaining experience. The stillness required while watching television creates time and space for this.

The second reason has to do with what French sociologist Émile Durkheim called collective effervescence. This is when you share an experience with others and feel a sense of emotional synchronization as a result. During these experiences, our brains release feel-good chemicals, and we tend to shed our busy, worrying individualistic minds, even if only temporarily, and instead feel part of something bigger. Now, I don’t think Durkheim had Love Boat reruns— what 11-year old me watched with my siblings on summer afternoons—in mind. Nevertheless, this is exactly what it can feel like.

The third reason is that being able to watch TV together is a great way of leaning into the less-scheduled ease of summer. It is “productive” insofar as it is not productive at all, and that is the point.

Lastly, collective viewing gives us something to talk about, a shared interest of sorts. We can analyze the show or movie together afterwards, including our own subjective experiences of the funny and scary parts, getting to know each other and ourselves better in the process.

So with this in mind, here are four TV shows that worked for our whole family.

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This has been our longest-running whole-family watch, and the kids dug it since they were preschoolers. We also make a sweet treat to eat during it, the planning and/or preparation of which has become part of the watching ritual.

Oh, do I adore how this show gives all family members deep interiority, including the parents…even the mom! Everyone is complex and has contradictory longings and does their best to honor and blend those longings with their commitment to family life. I’d say start this when kids are seven or eight.

Justin Willman mixes comedy and charm with some really cool magic and what’s more fun than trying to figure out how a magician did it alongside others? Also, unlike the male greats of yore, Justin weaves his caregiving self into the show. We learn about him as a father, and, in an episode that brought me to tears, about him as a son of a beloved mom with Alzheimer’s disease. I’d say this one would likely work for ages four/five and up.

I just started re-watching this with my 13-year-old, years after I watched the whole series myself. Honestly, I’m surprised he is willing to snuggle alongside me as the show moves through unrequited crushes, making out, drinking, and various other taboos of teendom that he is not ready for, but no doubt becoming more aware of. And yet he watches and snuggles! This came up in a conversation I had with Courtney Martin recently and together we realized that the show is so good is because it is ultimately about the longing to belong and feel “normal”—and not getting laid. It’s a universal message that my teen is willing to explore with me.

Do you have any favorite whole-family TV shows? Please share in the comments.

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