Get Off the Phone and Do Your Job!

I had a disturbing wake up call the other day when I kept telling my 3 tear old, Wee Man, to
“Hold on one minute,” while I was trying to find a word on an app I like playing.  Finally, after more than a few “one minutes” he grabbed my hand and started pulling me to come with him then he shouted, “do your job!”

It is scary how those words sound coming from someone so small.  I realized, when I was finished being paralyzed by his words, that my job is being with my children.  Being the Robin in my son’s game of Batman or the victim of a paralyzing web in a game of Spider-man is certainly more important than finding out that fugly is not a real word.  But, the most shocking thing that I learned in this exchange was that my time doing other things is being noticed by my children.  I started wondering how many moments I have missed with out realizing it but my children remember.

I decided to ask my kids what they think about the use of distractions around our home.  The results were pretty unanimous.  All of the older kids agree that since mommy got her new phone she is on it more than she used to be, but its not too much.  They also think I should let them play with it more, because it is really cool. 

So, maybe I don’t use my phone too much.  But, let’s face it people have more access to technology than ever before.  I am surrounded by people with children, and I have noticed most of those children are being pushed in strollers while their parents have their beloved cell phones strapped to their hips.  I watch kids at the park playing carelessly as their caregivers are staring into a screen.  I have even had to alert parents that their toddlers were wandering away because the parent was so engrossed with whatever they were looking at that they didn’t notice their child was not beside them.

I know we all need time to ourselves.  We deserve it. We work hard day in and day out.  I swear sometimes if it wasn’t for the friendly faces I see smiling at me on the Twitter page I would forget what adults look like. But, as they say there is a time and place for everything, and I think the portability of our devices has caused mass amnesia on the population and we have forgotten where and when we should be using these things.

There have been numerous stories of people harmed because of someone texting while driving. People are dieing because our society is simply not paying attention to what they are doing. Multitasking has reached an all time high. But, our priorities seem out of whack. We are more interested in a message, tweet, or profile update than what is going on in our homes and cars. 

I have made pledge to my family to spend my time interacting with them. I always have nap time, and those moments where the kids are doing their own thing to get on my phone or, thanks to DVR technology, watch my favorite shows.  I don’t want to look back and wish I had been paying attention to more than my contacts when my kids were little.