Dr. Screen Love, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the iPad
Far from neglectful, modern moms are doing more than ever and drowning as a result.
I remember the first time I propped a phone in front of our then-one-year-old son at brunch. My bag of restaurant tricks had been no match for his newest passion, which was gleefully throwing anything his chubby little fingers could grasp, often with force. My husband looked panicked when a crayon hit the table next to us, then an ice cube. I felt my blood pressure rise when, bent down on the floor to retrieve these items and apologize, I saw a (thankfully butter) knife sail toward the same table. In the shuffle, he finally grabbed a glass votive, which I had moved temporarily to get out of the booth, and shattered it like he was Chris Hemsworth in Thor. If he could talk, I’m sure he would have happily demanded, “Another!”
I am a stubborn person, and my resolve not to be the “iPad mom” was strong that summer. I was feeling vulnerable about working so much, and the moments I was with my kids I couldn’t stomach being branded as checked-out, selfish, really any of the things they tell you working moms are by default. I worked on unfastening him to walk him around the restaurant, when my mom’s hand stopped me.
“Lauren,” she said, “you haven’t eaten anything since you’ve sat down. You look exhausted. Ten minutes of a video is not going to make any difference.”
She pulled out her phone and put a little toddler video on mute. My son quieted and realized, belatedly, that there were scrambled eggs and fruit right in front of him. He ate happily, and I, first slowly and self-consciously, and then, shocked that no one had approached me to admonish me for melting his brain with Cocomelon, ate a full restaurant meal. I listened to what my mom was saying, chatted happily with my three-year-old, and joked with my husband. I felt like I, a mom, could eat a meal in public. My son was no worse for wear to have a little entertainment to smooth the way. Perhaps my mom is still parenting me at my advanced age? Hard to say.
Why was I so panicked at being seen giving a baby a tablet? Did I really think that 10 minutes of a video will be the reason, say, the Harvard admissions team throws his hypothetical 2040 application in the trash?