It's All Your Fault: The Perils of Texting Edition
Admit it, you look at your phone when you are watching your kids play.
You look at your phone when you are talking to your mother, or watching TV, or walking the dog.
Looking at your phone is what we do, we have lost the ability to be alone with ourselves anywhere - even on the playground. And the Wall Street Journal says that is a problem because kids are getting hurt because we parents are spending too much time texting.
The only problem is that the numbers they are quoting are totally relational, not causal. The number of kids getting hurt is increasing, and the increase happened around the same time that smartphones became popular.
So therefore, says fake science, parents are ignoring their kids while on their smartphones. It's probably true, I am way more distracted now that I am a Twitter and BBM addict than I was when I had a Motorola Krzr flip phone.
But when I am in the playground, I am generally ignoring my kids because I am chatting - not because I am checking the latest news on Twitter. So have smartphones made me a worse parent? Probably. I'm just not sure I needed the Wall Street Journal to tell me that.
As Donny Deutsch says in the video, it's the truth about human relationships now, not just parents. (Star Jones is also in the video, but I don't know why.)
Should I stop texting while parenting? Shouldn’t I give them my full, undivided attention, with every fibre of my being? I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m more than a mother. I’m a human being, with many interests, with many things on the go at once. These are good kids. They are well taken care of. I am available when they need me. That is enough.
Others, like Haley at Today's Parent, are going to try and stop texting and parenting at the same time. The anecdotes in the article were all she needed to realize that she may be putting her kids in danger.
I worry about my phone preoccupation, not because of injuries but because I am not fully present when I am thinking about my next tweet, or laughing at a friend's text. My kids are getting older and I really want to experience them before it's too late. Also, my son is 12 and has a phone and it is really annoying when he ignores me.
How about you? Do you think that your phone distracts you, and puts your kids at risk?
Want more chaos? This is a huge coincidence! Last year, I asked if Moms Need Smartphones after I dropped my phone down the sewer grate. The memory still makes me weep.
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