My Revolutionary Soap Box

Maybe it is studying the Revolutionary War and the Civil War (or War of Northern Aggression, as those in Richmond might call it), but I am giving not just a side comment or paragraph, but an entire blog post for me to clamber up on my soap box for a moment.

We eat out at restaurants rather a lot, especially for a family of six, and being out in public is increased even more when we take a little vacation like this. All this out-and-about gives me much opportunity to see parents with children in public. And I am downright sad to see so much use of screen time in public. It is bad enough that we (me included) use the television (or other screens) as babysitters within the home: isolating children away from us, giving us a really quick fix to get the children to sit still and be quiet so we don't have to do the arduous work of teaching them to occupy themselves or be useful or just be quiet: a process that will take years and years! I understand the exhaustion and I do use the TV to clickety-clickety! instantly make them stop yammering.

But to see incessant screen time usage in public is increasingly wearying to me. We go into restaurants and find many children seated with their parents, the tots staring--often each at their own screen (iPad, iPhone, tablet, etc.)--at their own seats, little zombies with their food sitting cold in front of them, while their parents eat peacefully (or are simultaneously on their own screen devices: yes, I've seen entire families doing this). I now see this at every restaurant into which we walk, whether it is a cheap pizza place or a white linen table cloth kind of establishment. And when we are at restaurants, I regularly see young, couples on dates, each adult texting on their cell phones (presumably) to other people not at the table: one just has to wonder what kind of relationships and marriages will be built on such a foundation. At the wedding reception this weekend, I saw teenagers sitting around watching TV or surfing the Net instead of being taught (required) to socialize--if ever so stiffly and awkwardly at first with adults around them. (And, frankly, I saw adults doing it too: Adults! Adults sitting at formal tables at a wedding reception surfing the Net on their phones instead of conversing with those around them!) I saw children at Colonial Williamsburg being shut up with screen time, which means their parents paid $20 per kid and $50 per adult to take them to a one-of-a-kind historic place in our nation in order to let them stare at a TV screen.

I want to do better than this!

Screen time is so isolating. It prevents family members from interacting together. In contrast to these sad sights, I was inspired when we took the tour of the White House of the Confederacy to view its sitting room: it contained chairs with little tables clustered 'round in about three different sitting arrangements within the same room. People could sit in clusters about the room, one group talking about one subject, another group working embroidery, another group listening to a person read a book, whatever! Nowadays, living rooms have all the furniture pointed to one thing: The Great God Television. It is rare to see a living room in which all the seating furniture is not pointed at the television (unless it is the unusual home without a TV in it: apparently the average American home contains 2.5 televisions but one-third of homes contain more than four TVs). So none of us will talk, we won't interact, and we won't learn arts to occupy us (sewing, painting, reading aloud well for listeners, playing music, group games, etc.). We sit passively and are entertained instead of interacting and providing occupation to each other.

It is so wearying to me.

I am so tired of seeing screens in front of zombie faces everywhere I go.

I cringe when I use screen time this way, but I am fighting the good fight. I'm fighting hard and I'd love to see other parents inspired to battle the Screen God too!

Truly, friends, I confess that I am not perfect in this regard. My children watch about an hour of TV (Netflix--no commercials) most days. I hate it, but it's the level at which we are at now. I continue to have hopes that we truly throw away our screens. So far, I have been able to hold the line at ever letting them watch screen time in public (restaurants, waiting rooms, etc.). That means I have to plan ahead. Some of the things I do are:

• I bring a book which I will literally read to them quietly in a waiting room ("Gather round, we're going to read some Narnia while we wait for the doctor"). 
• I will play "I Spy" or guessing or spelling games. I play a game with the children in which each of us takes turning inventing a few lines of a story before the next person takes over and little-kid hilarity ensues. 
• I will count baby toes. 
• I will walk a toddler around and point things out to her. 
• I carry a tiny notebook and pen in my purse so my toddler can scribble, I can draw pictures for her, or I can play tic-tac-toe type of games with my older children.
• And I will discipline older children who really should be able to sit still for a while. 

These ways to pass the time are hard, and they mean I don't get to watch my own screen or read my own book or have uninterrupted conversations with an adult because I am very busy parenting.

I hope I'm making a good choice here and not throwing away all these years I could spend in front of the screen instead.

And, please, know that I understand there are always exceptions. I know of one close-to-my-heart child with special needs who responds very well to having screen time which enables him to be in public places with his siblings. And togetherness is a benefit that far outweighs screen time! Or me: I'll share that right now I'm putting my health at a top priority, which means a goal of exercising for 45 minutes every morning. After about four months of trying every other solution to make this work, I have waved the white flag and am using the TV as babysitter: I set up the iPad in my exercise room so I can supervise my four early risers and try to improve my health. So I know there are special circumstances, occasional uses, exceptions, but what I am seeing culturally is not a special exception. When every restaurant I eat in, every bus or plane I board, every waiting room in which I sit, and every party has at it a substantial portion of people (especially the children) staring at screens instead of interacting . . .

. . . we have a problem, Houston.