what you do, even if you make him wear dresses. Let's just remember that in many foreign countries (until rather recently--25 or 30 years ago) it was the accepted custom to keep a boy in little girl dresses until he was 5 or 6 years old. If TVism were "catchy", then this mass exposition of little boys to skirts and long curls, would have resulted in an entire generation of transves- tites. Since this was (unfortunately) not the case, then we must conclude that seeing Daddy in Mommy's clothes is not going to turn the kid into a TV UNLESS he already is a potential TV...and in this case he will certainly be one, no matter what.

If-despite these arguments, you still believe that little Johnny might learn to like to dress up by imitat- ing Daddy- then I argue that neither Daddy nor Mommy should worry. To worry means that they see in TVism something ugly and undesirable. (My last words before they pull the switch on the electric chair will be: "TV- ism is a wonderful thing.") If I were given a choice to start life all over again I would still pick TVism as a basic ingredient of my personality, despite all the problems that it entails. Ah! The problems! Here I see the point of those parents who say "don't tell the child". TVism, as society is constituted today, IS a problem and I can see why parents do try to eliminate as many problems as possible from the life of their off- spring. I believe however, that life without problems would be an awfully boring thing. Half the fun in life is in meeting the problems and striving to solve them, or learning to live with them, or even turning them into a source of joy.

But, where did we drop our A- wife? She will prob- ably choose the third alternative: tell the child later. This implies a conspiracy of silence and a constant state of vigilance so the child won't find out before the par- ents feel the time is ripe. A conspiracy of silence al- ways strikes me as being somewhat tainted with guilt. It means that there still exists in the parent's minds a feeling that TVism is somehow wrong and ugly. I will admit that there may be other considerations such as social position, daddy's job, intolerant relatives, etc. that might make it necessary to keep Daddy's TVism

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