Mom Guilt in the Age of Technology - Defending My iPhone

 In the ocean of opinions swimming through the internet, there have been waves of voices condemning parents for their smartphone use. I’m stepping forward as the mom staring at her iPhone in public while my kid pulls at my arm for attention. Yeah, I read your Facebook status proposing my kids should be taken away and given to someone who cares about them.
When I’m in charge, the punishment for the righteous, childless tech-judging masses will be 24 hours locked in a room with a toddler. We’ll see how long it takes you to reach for your phone, or at least pass it to the kid so you are finally free to curl up in a ball in the corner and pray for nap time. Until then, let’s give smartphone touting parents a break.

I get where you’re coming from, and I wouldn’t dare rant against “hands free,” engaged parenting. Here are the facts - numerous studies have shown that children who watch less than 2 or 3 hours of TV a day fare better academically than those who watch more. Media use, including the myriad of programming with ambitious names like “Baby Genius” or “Baby Einstein,” has shown to be in no way linked to positive learning outcomes. In fact, baby peers who watched no TV tested better on the tests scientists make up to measure infant intelligence, like how long your baby looks at a new picture, etc. In Western culture, infants and young children who get more face time (different than FaceTime), who are spoken to regularly, who interact with live human beings, they are the ones who appear to start life with a couple more points on the scoreboard. This sort of positive interaction has been linked to parents with more education and higher socioeconomic status, but it’s believed upping the QT with your cutie is a way to overcome statistical disadvantages that may be outside of your control. 

There has been less research into what effect parental media use has on children. Here's an article about a psychologist who in her observation (not scientific study), perceived that the kids of phone-engrossed parents in a fast food restaurant acted out. She references a father of 3 staring at his phone while his kids get crazy. What if lazy tech dad wasn’t causing his 3 children to act out by being preoccupied with his phone, but perhaps had been spending the entire day with those 3 rowdy kids and needed to check out for a minute and eat a burger (or maybe the kids were hungry for actual nutrients and poisoned by the toxic garbage served at the fast food place). This chicken/egg dilemma is a problem in most psych case studies because we’re pretty complex creatures. Anyway, to return to my point, there isn’t a lot of scientific evidence on this subject, but nonetheless plenty of common sense evidence suggests that ignoring your kids to look at your phone all day isn’t going to win you parent of the year. I get it. 

You're welcome, child-intolerant plane passengers.

Turning my children into mushy brained, overweight, lazy extensions of my couch is not among my goals, nor do I want to avoid interacting with them. Like the majority of parents, my children are my whole world and I would throw myself into a fire for them. There are a lot of other things I’d do for them, including engineering several configurations of train tracks a day, only to watch them be almost immediately thrown all over the room. I love my kids so much I regularly bounce one on my knee while I pee because sometimes babies just don’t want to be set down. I love my baby girl so much I get up sometimes 6 times a night to feed her, change her diaper, rock her, sing to her, and stare at her beautiful face, just like I did for her brother. I love my son so much that I still smile when he sings the ONE AND ONLY song he’s been singing for the last year. I would and do listen, usually intently, to the never-ending soundtrack of ridiculously imaginative and detailed scenarios he invents about cheeky trains getting into trouble (we're SUPER into Thomas the Train FYI). 12 hours a day childish jabbering and precious baby coos fill my ears with noise, my heart with joy, and melt my mind into goo.

Occasionally, I enjoy a shower which entails setting my baby on the bathroom floor surrounded by toys as I make silly noises, frantically shampoo and desperately hope for enough time to shave my second leg. During this special time I often turn the TV on for my son to keep my multitasking as low key as possible. In a moment of yuppy indulgence a few years back, we bought our iPad to prepare for our first 6 hour flight with an infant. Now when I’m putting the baby down for naps, my 3 year old watches Thomas youtube videos on the iPad. We regularly use FaceTime to stay connected to the grandparents we can’t always make the 6 hour flight to. At restaurants, my husband and I quickly hand our phones over to our children after opening their favorite apps. A few times a week, I just can’t make it through the afternoon without turning on a movie, and sitting down on the couch to stare at my phone while my offspring mellow out with the welcome help of Pixar. At the park, while my kids happily enjoy fresh air and physical exercise, my phone will momentarily block my view of the 30th run down the slide.

What on my phone is so much more interesting than my children, you ask? Well, I compulsively check Facebook, where I’m sometimes inspired by a good parenting article, often outraged by the news, seeking out the occasional debate to remind myself what grown up thoughts feel like, or let’s be real, a good chunk of the time I’m just smiling idiotically at trite moronic e-cards about how important drinking wine is. Frequently I ignore my children to choose Instagram filters for the thousands of photos I’ve taken of them. In an effort to better myself, I downloaded Anna Karenina on iBooks and have been reading maybe 20 phone-sized pages a day for the better part of this summer (only 2,000 to go). Atop my shameful confession list is the time I downloaded the Kim Kardashian Hollywood app and played compulsively for a couple weeks. I’m sorry, but jet-setting to celebrity appearances in designer cartoon outfits is a welcome break from wiping other people’s bottoms and settling exclusively for bits of watermelon left on the rind by your 3 year old. Do I think any of these mostly embarrassing indulgences are more important or interesting than my children? NOT AT ALL. Is this an especially strong source of mom guilt? Yes. Do I think I would be better off throwing my iPhone in the garbage? I’m not so sure.

I grew up mostly in the 90’s, though I won’t subject you to any lists of Saved by the Bell references to prove it. To me this was the era of the cordless phone, and a good part of my magical and enriching childhood was spent watching my mother pace around the house during 3 hour marathon phone calls. My mother-in-law recalls spending the whole of her summers immersed in conversation with other moms at the neighborhood pool while the kids played. Before that, Betty Draper types day-drank and chain-smoked while their kids ran around in the street. My point is parents have been ignoring their children for generations. It’s simply not possible to be animated and engaging 12-15 hours a day, not for me, not for you, not even for my charming, energetic children. 

The family that selfies together...

I’ve happily chosen to sacrifice most of my identity as an adult (my career, having a hair-do, wearing heels or anything silk, leaving the house past 7:00pm, etc.) for my children. Right now my connection to the world outside the walls of this love-filled home is my iPhone. I admit to letting my Apple worshipping ways seep into the lives of my kiddos but I think it’s logical to ask whether early technology use will be advantageous to the next generation in ways we don’t realize now. Being touch screen savvy might be more important in 20 years than we currently understand. Maybe these are the rambling justifications of an addict. What’s important to me now is having happy, healthy children and with a grateful heart I can say I do. If as a parent you can accomplish the same thing with less distraction, more power to you and please share your wisdom.

My parenting philosophy is rooted in the belief that my kids are people just like me, who deserve respect, and whose thoughts, feelings, words, behavior, concerns and accomplishments are worthy of my attention. I believe our actions leave a stronger impression than our words and try my best to be cognizant of what I’m role modeling. I’m pretty good at role modeling imperfection, and have come to incorporate the awareness and acceptance of this inevitability into my parenting. Through accepting that I can’t stimulate my child’s intellect 100% in each waking moment I’ve been able to permit myself some checked out time without diving into a whirlpool of mom guilt, which helps me to be more available physically and emotionally to my kids more often.

Life seems to consistently present me with the search for balance and the task of embracing moderation. Technology is certainly an area to which that applies. I want my family to have a masterful command of eye contact, but I’m tired of villainizing my lightweight, convenient connection to infant rash identification, weather reports and e-mail threads with my grandma. The precious years with our young children are far too short, but the days are loooonnng; long enough to look at Pinterest on a park bench while your kid swings. 

This post inspired me to jot down my thoughts on the subject, and does a much better job defending smart phone moms than I do.