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| The Anarchist's birthday list. Note the last item before "SUPRISES!"Only "if possable," of course. She knows us too well. Maybe she hoped to manipulate us with an adorable self portrait? |
Because at first when they claimed that all of their friends had iphones, I didn't really believe them. I mean, those things are pricey, and I don't know about your kids, but you should see what has happened to the Dictator and Anarchist's expensive American Girl dolls that we told them they must treasure and handle as if they were baby kittens. Let's just say Molly is half naked, wrapped in paper, sporting unintentional dreadlocks, and Caroline is buried in an avalanche of books, rubberbands, stuffed animals, and scattered Nerd candies. I can only imagine what would happen to pricey technology. I don't know, maybe other parents have children who do things like pick up and put away. I don't have those children. I have little whirlwinds of destruction. Those phones wouldn't even see it coming.
Heck, the Anarchist would probably trade hers for half of a chicken nugget at lunch. I am not exaggerating. She totally would.
Heck, the Anarchist would probably trade hers for half of a chicken nugget at lunch. I am not exaggerating. She totally would.
So yeah. I figured no one else would think it wise to put technology that I cannot even afford for myself into the hands of people who still publicly pick their noses and eat it, but then I looked around. It really, truly does appear actually ALL of my kids' friends do, in fact, have smart phones, or at least tablets of some sort. The Dictator and Anarchist really, truly, may be the only children on the face of the universe (or at least on the face of suburbia) who languish for lack of access to mind-numbing games, and all those newfangled social media apps like Snappychat and Kicky or whatever.
And I started to feel guilty. For like, a split second. But then I remembered this:
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that kids only engage in this kind of media for one or two hours a day. This is in contrast to the whopping seven hours a day that the average child consumes.
Seven hours.
That's as much time as they spend in school.
Seven hours.
Nope, nope, nope.
And I also remembered this:
The Bureaucrat and I can barely afford our own fancy technology. So, we are certainly not going to be nice enough to give it to our kids. We are not even nice enough to share our candy with them.
And I also remembered this:
I am lazy and exhausted.
Lazy and exhausted results in not a whole ton of micro-manage-y child oversight on my part. I am a free range parent without even meaning to be. It's not neglect, exactly. It's mostly just more Cheetos than they should probably be given in any given time period coupled with a few too many Minecraft You Tube videos, topped off with a bit of "whatever" when it comes to room cleaning. Let's just say I'm a Type B mom. That sounds respectable. And good for my heart.
But not so great for controlling the screen time. Other kids may only use their phones when their homework is done and their rooms are clean, but if my kids had their own devices, they would lock themselves in their room with their eyes glazed over and their thumbs permanently glued to the screens while I watched Netflix and cried about poetry made a wholesome dinner and scrubbed my floors. They would be totally and completely unsupervised. The ideal one hour would turn into eight hours, and I'd be all like, "They're fine. I'm sure they're reading Dostoevsky and knitting mittens for orphans." Meanwhile, the Dictator would have taught herself code, become a female gaming blogger, been subjected to threats by idiotic, misogynistic boy gamers in capes, and become embroiled in Gamergate II, a fact that I would probably only discover from obsessively scanning my own phone in a vain attempt to not feel so alone.
And the Anarchist would have run off with the first guy/girl/cat/inanimate object she met on Tinder.
Capes and cats, people. This is terrifying. At least when they watch a batrillion hours of television, I can see what they're watching (British people playing Minecraft, it turns out).
Thusly, despite the Anarchist's adorable birthday request, I cannot allow my innocent children to have their own electronic devices (until such a time as they wear me down with their incessant whining). I know plenty of parents who do a great job managing the screen time of their kiddos, but I know myself, and I know I would never supervise my kids' technology use adequately. Also, the Dictator is enough of a zombie. And the Anarchist already has the attention span of a flea. And zombies and fleas are not things I want to unleash on the universe.
So I will continue repeating my super-annoying mantra, "Boredom breeds creativity. It's great that you're bored. Go be creative," and hope that they don't resent me too, too much (but if they do, I hope they channel that resentment into super-angsty art). Also, I will hope to find at least one other parent in this world as mean as I am. Because it would be lovely to counter, "I'm literally THE ONLY ONE without a phone!" with, "No, you're not. And stop overusing the world 'literally.'"
Man, that would be satisfying. Literally, the most satisfying thing ever.
Man, that would be satisfying. Literally, the most satisfying thing ever.
*Closes blog. Returns to mindlessly and obsessively scanning social media for signs of life.*
