What do you get when you combine a four-year-old with a lack of cable? PBS. Each night, as we near 7 o’clock and settle into snuggle mode, the only channel our family can watch together is PBS. Which is fantastic.

We’re not usually home on Wednesday nights, so last night I flipped through the networks to see what’s hip with the kids these days. And was faced with nothing but ‘reality’ programming, which is about as an ironic term as you’ll ever find. It’s a bleak landscape of shiny, distracting things lining a path of sorrow and shame leading to the darkest, dankest, slimiest basement of the soul with a litter box in the corner that hasn’t been cleaned in weeks.

Why do you people watch this garbage?

By contrast, our four local PBS stations are a lush wilderness of NOVA, WIRED Science, Fetch!, Live from Lincoln Center, and Rick Steves.

Soon after I installed our digital tuner, our family sat and watched an hour-long program about the heart. Ian watched the entire show, and later explained an embolism to my mother. That night he prayed for the little girl who’d undergone heart surgery.

Last night, instead of watching which model could strike the better pose, we watched Rick Steves’ Insider’s Europe. Rick was visiting Northwest England and some of his favorite farms cum bed-and-breakfasts. Ian watched as a little boy enthusiastically milked a cow, which looked a little nervous. Rick quickly cut to a scene with trotting ponies.

‘Oh,’ Ian said, pointing at the screen, ‘now they’re going to milk the horses.’