Julie Jay: For all her faults, Peppa does a great job babysitting the kids for an hour

We started descending the slippery slope of too much telly when I was expecting my youngest. With my bulging belly, it became easier to justify whacking the telly on instead of playing chase in the playground or climbing trees in the park. Ted was happy, and I was happy to an extent, but still my conscience was niggling.

As Ted watched cartoons, I emailed television production companies with pitches. I told myself that allowing him to watch telly was in some way creating jobs for people because that’s how corporate cycles work. But still, looking outside and seeing a unicorn (and by that, I mean a dry day in West Kerry), I couldn’t help but feel I’d failed my little man by not doing something more productive like blowing bubbles or knocking on neighbours’ doors and then running away.

I knew we had hit rock bottom when anglicisation started punctuating my son’s vernacular.

The first sign of trouble was when Ted asked if I could procure hot chocolate “from the cupboard”. My blood ran cold, and I asked him where he had learned that word, knowing the answer would, of course, be Peppa Pig, who is always the brewer of bad behaviour. Sure enough, it turned out the pesky pig was responsible for this new vocabulary, and we spent the rest of the day repeating ‘press, press, press’ until Ted and I were emotionally and physically exhausted.

“When are we going to the seaside Mammy?” he asked me one day as we walked along Dingle pier. I stopped in my tracks, bent down to his level and, looking him in the eye, asked if he meant the beach. “No, the seaside, like CBeebies,” Ted doubled down. I trudged on, devastated at having dropped the ball and, in doing so, fostering a totally avoidable speech impediment in my son — that of an English accent.

At that moment, I knew we had to switch to TG4 and RTÉjr with immediate effect. Admittedly, with the former TV station, we risk Ted developing Galway Irish but anything is better than him speaking like he’s appearing on the Royal Variety Show.

When it comes to the telly, my husband doesn’t see the problem. “Sure, it didn’t do us any harm,” he says. I want to agree but surely my social anxiety tells a very different story.

That being said, he does have a point. I loved telly when I was a child, primarily because I loved stories, and always harboured a secret dream of performing and maybe being on telly myself.

As much as I genuinely believe that given a choice, our three-year-old will always choose to play with us over watching cartoons, the reality is it’s not overly detrimental to allow them to delve into the world of ‘Spidey Man’ and Go Jetters.

I remember many happy moments from my childhood watching Duck Tales and Care Bears and my strange, inexplicable crush on Michelangelo of the Ninja Turtles. I loved my telly time because, as an introverted child, I yearned for downtime, not having to work out the playground politics of games and small people. It was my escape, in a way. It didn’t necessitate wearing shoes and wasn’t dependent on the social approval of other people. For that reason, I would never impose a complete telly ban on my kids because, although they are not CEOs of small companies or working in retail at Christmas, they need downtime too sometimes.

That being said, I am still trying to rein the telly in, and the last two weeks have seen me turn on the small screen less and try to play more. Seeing how much my three-year-old enjoys the games we make up has stirred in me the perennial parental guilt of wishing I could play with him all the time, despite knowing it’s just not possible when we are all working to deadlines and trying desperately to earn a buck. As Dolly Parton once said, “it costs a lot of money to look this cheap”, and as much as I’d love to spend my days playing chase, something has to pay for my monthly chin-plucking.

Like so many parents, I envisaged a future involving a lot of wooden toys and waterplay, but allowing our kids to watch telly also gives us a break sometimes, and that’s important too. If putting on the movie, Cars, allows you time to catch your breath, get a wash on, hoover, or even just have a cup of tea, then it’s worth it. Getting a minute as a parent can often mean the difference between being a good parent and a better parent.

Besides, Peppa is a lot less irritating as Ghaeilge, so cartoons on RTÉjr are a strong recommendation. For all her faults, Peppa does a great job of babysitting the kids for an hour, and for that we will be eternally grateful. In Peppa Muc we trust.