Cheeky kids?

Having four daughters I'm well aware of the need to instill good morals from the word go but the practicalities of having them so close together has meant my standards have inevitably slipped a little. I like to pride myself on having well mannered well adjusted children yet recently i find myself looking through rose tinted glasses. Mimi has started to answer back a lot, Fi is prone to massive angry rages and the twins well we now refer to them as "Ronnie" and Reggie" - they are a law unto themselves. I'm ashamed to admit this but i do use the TV as a babysitter from time to time with the older two - believe me it's necessary.

However i hadn't bargained on the enormous negative influence it would have on them - especially Mimi. I know. kids are like sponges blah, blah and there have been several well publicised documentaries and newspaper articles about the damaging effects the media has on children. In the perfect stepford world sure I'd ban all technology from the house, only listen to classical music, eat a micro biotic diet and we would all sit round the piano singing folk songs and play Scrabble for entertainment. The real world i inhabit is a little different - stress is a daily occurrence, i have to make an appointment with my over worked, self employed, tax man fearing husband just to arrange a family afternoon out, we can't afford organic everything or a piano for that matter (i am working on the piano though) and i would be lost without my microwave - I'm a far cry away from becoming Martha Stewart.
Yes in my world letting the kids have free reign over the t.v for an hour provides me with some very needed me time - just to think straight for a minute about how many washes of laundry i need to put on, if we have enough potatoes left for that fish pie for tonight's tea and to find that missing pink shoe Bella's misplaced again! I do though question my parenting skills when Fifi calls her daddy a "Loser" (high school musical) and Mimi starts talking with an American accent and obsessing about a little boy in her class being her boyfriend and says she wants to get married(hannah montana). So i have no alternative but to ban the disney channel from the bold house, Mimi's really upset as all she does is sing and dance all day long, she loves Hannah Montana and HSM, and i have to admit it's definitely more trying and less entertaining for me sitting through an hour of Dora than it is watching Zack and Kody, but if that's what it takes to get my well mannered English children back then it's a small price to pay - cbeebies all the way!