Mama's Soapbox: Cyberspace Charms Us

Trying to temper my Internet usage during this Advent has been spiritually revealing even in only six days so far. I thought I would share some of my thoughts and feelings, but certainly no absolute conclusions because I don't pretend to have those.

Do I think the Internet is evil? No. Am I a Luddite? No.

What are my concerns about the Internet? The world of cyberspace is endlessly alluring. There is much good in it. I have connected with amazing, God-loving women who have helped me in my faith life. I have learned so much academic content, domestic church traditions, and tips for how to live our lives and raise our children. I do my meal planning online and most of my shopping online, which lets me stay at home. Cyberspace is really wonderful.

It's endlessly charming.

So, I never want to leave cyberspace. There's always one more thing. "Just one more minute, kids." "I'm almost done." Meanwhile, my back is to the children and I'm not making eye contact. Nobody else can share easily in what I am doing when I am online. We lack communion. Even if I am reading a book while sitting on the sofa, my family members can glance at the book's title and say, "Oh, how are you enjoying Fabre's Insects?" And then we converse.

Thus, I decided to cut back and see if I could focus more on my God-given vocation and the souls he's actually placed in my care (not the souls that are my cyberspace friends). My guidelines: Try not to be online (1) while the kids are awake and (2) in my care (not counting the baby). If I have to look up a recipe or driving directions or such, then that's fine to do anytime, but no email or 'surfing'. This leaves for me time before the children wake for the day (usually 30-60 minutes), during their Quiet Time (1-2 hours), and after they go to bed (so a couple of hours at night). Have I been perfect at this? No, but pretty good this week considering that this is a deeply ascetic change for me.

In reality: how much time do I really get online? Maybe 15-30 minutes in the morning, maybe 30 minutes during Quiet Time (because the baby who takes a morning and afternoon nap is always awake right after lunch when the bigger kids are in Quiet Time, and she does not tolerate my sitting and ignoring her), and maybe a couple of hours after bedtime when my brain is so exhausted, I cannot do any work of substance (correspondence, meal planning, homeschooling curriculum, ordering Christmas gifts, etc.).

Six measly days of it and the results are thought-provoking for me.

I am feeling addictive feelings wanting more Internet time. I race down in the morning in order to get online and then feel angry when I hear the pitter patter of my treasured children waking up. 'No, not yet!' What does it mean that we'd die for our children (and what good parent wouldn't say that?), but we won't reduce ourselves to, say, four hours of online time per day? Four hours of time online per day isn't enough? Really?

During Quiet Time, I am a bundle of irritation if the kids don't pass out asleep because otherwise that means I am putting Mary, in particular, back into Quiet Time a zillion times. And this takes work as a parent (as opposed to all the "parenting" that involves relaxing and eating bon bons, right?) and it is exhausting, and then I can't be online. The baby is screaming if I'm not holding her and walking around, so I feel irritated at her for, you know, being eight months old.

Then after dinner and Rosary, the kids are finally in Chris' care, if he's in town, or they're asleep, I am frustrated because I feel I have hours of a mother's office-type work to do, which involves being online, but my mind is totally trashed from fatigue. I can't think through the fog about how to plan to celebrate St. Nicholas' feast day, what meals to serve two weeks from now, or what Christmas gifts I need to order.

I find myself sneaking online, which is revealing far too much attachment. 'Oh, I need a recipe, and I guess I'll just check my email too.' Or using my iPhone to check email, as if that doesn't count and just as much take me away from my children as the physical computer. Because size makes a qualitative difference, right? A 10-inch computer screen = bad, but a 3-inch computer screen = a-okay! (I'm having all kinds of pro-life thoughts here, but let's not get off on a rabbit trail.)

Before this experiment, I used these three periods of breaks from the children to do various things: In the morning, I might drink coffee and read a book. Or say morning prayers. During Quiet Time, I might catch up on a lot of physical chores, like washing dishes and mopping the floor. Or I'd exercise on the treadmill. Then I'd have my online time while the kids were awake and I'd be able to focus because the Handy Dandy Television Set would babysit them for me (for free--and, as a bonus, altering their brain connections being formed, having a more soporific effect than actual sleep, and teaching them moral lessons counter to our convictions).

Take away TV and Internet for Advent simultaneously and we're left with a whole lot of time together.

As if being a homeschooling stay-at-home mother wasn't time enough with one's children, right? I've already devoted my life to them, how much more do I have to do? How much, God? This week I've been using those three fairly regular breaks during the day for online time and then having (getting?) to do all the rest of the stuff with my kids at my heels: for example, it's hard, when I have a three-year-old who can not ever be left unsupervised and a baby who must be carried, to haul several heavy loads of laundry per day up and down stairs, switch loads, and fold clothing. (Hhhhmmm, perhaps this hardness of one parent doing everything by herself is why other times and other cultures taught children to help with chores early and competently. And was that a virtue? Methinks, yes!) So, I ask, is it better for me to do my chores alone and have the kids see me during many waking hours sitting, back turned to them, staring at a computer screen? Or is it better for them to see me in varied, productive and wholesome work, such as washing dishes, walking on the treadmill, and doing laundry? But can't I ever get a break and do my chores without occupying children simultaneously? How well would our husbands do having to be on a multinational conference call while occupying little kids? Or organizing the garage while occupying kids? Doctoring patients, writing computer programming, or engineering something while occupying kids? It's really hard and I know my mommy-readers know that.

But maybe it is more wholesome and edifying for children to be at my heels and involved while I do corporal work around our home? Forming virtues in the soul? Helping children (and adults) calm to a slower lifestyle, not needing constant, fast-paced stimulation? Assisting them in feeling boredom and accepting it as part of life and really not that bad? ALLOWING THEM TO BE SILENT AND HEAR GOD? Something I think is morally corrosive is how human beings in public are constantly on their portable electronic devices. I was departing a hardware store the other day when in walked parents with two children, perhaps five and seven, each carrying their own iPads (yes, those things that cost about $500), staring downward at the screens, playing some kind of game while they walked and their parents helped them not crash into things. This in a hardware store, which I remember being one of my favorite places to visit with my daddy when I was a little girl: I can remember the wood smells, the dust of wood shavings under my feet, the thousands of drawers of different screws. But those little kids apparently weren't entertained enough by a hardware store visit to break away from their electronic pacifiers. (And if they weren't entertained, how about developing the virtue of obedience to their parents by just being quiet and still during a necessary errand?) I see children and adults alike playing with their electronic devices in doctors' waiting rooms, in lobbies, while driving in their cars, and at restaurants. One time I felt bad that my kids weren't perfect in a restaurant while a nearby three-year-old girl sat absolutely still and delightfully quiet through dinner. As we walked out, I saw that her parents had brought a DVD player into the restaurant and that is what was pacifying the child the whole time. And recently I was at church and witnessed a Boy Scout meeting in progress with young men about 12-14 years old. The Scout Master was teaching them something: half the young men were playing with their iPhones instead of paying attention. Examples of this slavish devotion to portable electronic devices are legion, so I must stop myself from even trying to share more.

Suffice it to say, I do not want to behave that way and I desperately don't want my kids growing up that way. I would definitely be lazier and allow myself more addiction to electronic devices if I did not have children, but wanting to be a good example provides a lot of motivation. One of my relatives has a personal saying which she said often in her mothering career: "People before electronics!"

The reality is that, after one week's experiment, I am not keeping up with what I consider my computer work. I have a pad of paper on which I am writing all the computer tasks I need to do when I get the time. I am not finishing my tasks. I am days behind on my work. I feel like I can't catch up. (Am I ignoring my actual needful work that comes from my vocation and inventing false burdens for myself?) Plus I'm not connecting with friends nearly as much as before because I mostly connect with them by email. (How easy it is for mothers of young children to talk on the phone with all the shrieking in the background, right?) I am experiencing a lot of distressing emotions about this lack. Friends are wondering why I haven't replied to emails in all of two or three whole days. Honestly, I'd be freaking out if a friend didn't reply to me in two days . . . but what does that say about us as a culture? We can't wait for a letter? It doesn't seem reasonable that a mother of three children under five is astonishingly busy? And yet, just like the other people waiting for me to reply to their emails, even I think I should be able to juggle these children, this husband, our home, religious devotions, and still have many hours per day online to work, to relax, and to connect with friends.

I'm getting about four focused hours of time online a day. And apparently four hours per day isn't nearly enough to do my 'work'. That is shockingly revealing to me because it gives me a hint of how much time I have been spending online, even though by all appearances, even to myself, I am a devoted homeschooling mother.

With about four hours online, I am left with about 12 waking hours not plugged in, about 11 of those with the children awake, in my care, and not napping. Those are eleven long hours. It's very interesting to me to sit with the discomfort of how hard those long hours can be. (Shouldn't this all be blissfully easy?) And I'd rather run back to cyberspace with all its distractions and pleasantries, and let my children be hypnotized by a television set (ooo--or by their very own little laptops or iPads!).

But then I must ask myself, like in the movie The Matrix, would I rather be plugged in to a seemingly wonderful un-reality, or would I rather unplug and live in the real and the now, with all its truth and sometimes ugliness?

Life is trying. Being a mother is a challenge. Doing work is hard and doing work with children helping out is even harder. Perhaps I should stop trying to make this short foray on Earth to be so heavenly, when our true place of blissful easiness, joy, and freedom is, we hope, in God's presence in Heaven after we shuffle off this mortal coil.

Three more long weeks of this Advent experiment . . . please pray for me!