Call the Midwife, etc

I'm a week behind on Call the Midwife. I finally watched last Sunday's episode last night, and then about half of the new one. We have baby gates up to keep the dogs out of the living room, and Boy Dog was barking and carrying on, wanting in. Husband doesn't want me to name this one because he's a temporary pup that I found a street over about two months ago. Funny thing is that he actually responds to being called this, so he does have a name, just not one that I would've given him.

Anyhow, about Call the Midwife. I like this show in part because it shows natural childbirth as being the norm. None of this, "Are you ready for your epidural?" like I've heard hospitals do, as though it's expected that it's a part of birth. Now, if I get pregnant I might be singing a different tune and become that lady screaming, "Give me the drugs!" while trying to break my husband's hand. I don't want to romanticize the idea of natural childbirth, but I think if it were the norm shown on television here, and women were shown being strong and capable and coached through it with caring midwives, then there might be less fear going into it.

I also like this show because of surface things like the setting, their costumes, and their accents. Even though I wouldn't have wanted to live in England during this time (just last week they were dealing with a TB outbreak!) I like to see it on my screen. Husband makes fun of me for watching it and Downton Abbey. He says, "Ooooh, call the neighbors!" in a British-ish accent when I tell him that's what I'm watching. I'm going to have to come up with a catch phrase for some of his shows, which are mostly sci-fi like The Walking Dead, cartoons, or things like Pawn Stars (which I like too).

It's a little weird I guess that I went from watching The Walking Dead with him on Sundays to falling out of that and watching something so completely different. Part of the reason I stopped watching Dead is that I didn't enjoy all the super gory scenes. I mentioned something about it once at work, and one of my students heard me and said, "I love that show!" or something to that effect, and she's an 8th grader. I cannot imagine being that young and watching this...I wouldn't sleep. People have different tastes though, and maybe she just has a higher tolerance for gore than I do. I don't know that if I had children if I would let them watch stuff like Dead at that age though. To me, it's for a much more mature audience. Am I turning into a prude as I get older? A TV snob? Is it normal that kids watch stuff like this when I'm twice their age and I don't want to?

Call the Midwife is a comforting show to me somehow, and I guess that's what it boils down to. I feel at ease watching it, while some shows put me on edge because of violence and nastiness. If I were pregnant, I wouldn't want to chance my baby hearing zombies attacking through the thin walls of my body. If people play classical music to their bellies with the hope that it'll somehow impact the baby, it makes sense to me that he or she shouldn't hear crap coming out of the TV.