Parenting in the Tech Age: What Our Own Mamas Can’t Teach Us

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We’ve been in IKEA for hours. I have saved my toddler from toppling furniture and sprinting away from me, all while encouraging his mastery of the letters “I, K, E, and A” and the colors blue and yellow. We have finally made it to the check-out line when suddenly my child makes it clear he is DONE. There are at least 15 people ahead of us and I’m out of snacks, so I sheepishly open the “animal noises” app on my phone and hand it to him. He calms down immediately, happily scrolling through pictures of koalas, monkeys, and animals I’ve never even heard of (what exactly is a “spotted bush warbler”?).

But my relief over avoiding a meltdown is soon followed by a wave of guilt, as the elephant noises coming from my phone start attracting attention from others in line. I try to look confident and avoid eye contact with the moms of other young children who appear to be sitting quietly in their cart, but I can’t help wondering: What are they thinking? Am I the worst mom because my toddler is using an iPhone? Am I creating a child who needs to constantly be entertained? 

I’m guessing I’m not the only mom who feels conflicted, sometimes daily, about my child’s use of technology. Am I making the right decisions about how I let my child interact with screens? Should I be ashamed to share my choices with other moms? When is technology a useful tool versus simply a convenient parenting crutch?

Whatever your beliefs about kids and technology — and no matter the age of your children — none of us can escape making decisions about how our families interact with technology. Screens demand our attention as consumers, friends, citizens, and learners, and they begin attracting our kids’ notice early in their lives.

Just like choices about breast or bottle, organic or GMO, Moby or Ergo, the ubiquity of technology creates yet another modern parenting dilemma in which we must wade through many opinions in order to arrive at the conclusion that works best for our family. For a fun experiment, go to any play group and casually bring up “screen time,” and you can be privy to perspectives ranging from a laissez-faire approach to ardent defenses of screen-free childhoods.

Unfortunately, when it comes to navigating these perspectives, we can’t simply default to what we learned from our own parents. Sure, technology was rapidly expanding during my own childhood, but in the form of floppy drives, Saturday mornings with Saved by the Bell, and Walkmans. I didn’t own an i-anything until I was in college, whereas my two-year old recently picked up my phone and asked Siri, “When Royals play?” (I do not know which parent taught him that…) So, while I may have inherited the perfect cinnamon roll recipe from my grandma and mom, there’s simply no well-tested family formula for balanced internet usage. Each generation of parents gets to figure it out for ourselves.

To complicate things a little more, we’re often on the receiving end of many mixed cultural messages about the benefit or harm of technology. The American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation to avoid screen time under age 2 is pretty clear-cut, but questions remain. For instance,

With so many perspectives and facets of this conversation, what’s a mom to do?!

In my own parenting, I try to allow technology in limited and supervised doses. After all, we know that screens simply cannot replace so many of the things children need: interpersonal interaction, free play, physical activity and reading. As my son’s pediatrician says, “we haven’t seen enough long-term effects of technology use with young kids yet, so it’s best to use caution.”

But even then, I’m a parenting pragmatist. My kid gets more screen time than I wish some days. When deciding whether to go three days without a shower or turning on Daniel Tiger, I’m likely going to choose washing my hair. And I’ll occasionally subject everyone in IKEA to zoo noises rather than listening to a whiny toddler. The warbler noises are better, I assure you.

Like so many other parenting decisions (pesticides! sleep schedules! discipline!), the choices we make about kids and technology do not always have clear-cut answers. And the decisions aren’t going away; in fact, I’m very aware that they will become much more complicated as my children get older and technology advances.

So, if a fellow mom is using an iPad to entertain her kid in the waiting room, I try to remember I’m only seeing five minutes of a very long day — one that I imagine includes singing, reading and playing in addition to technology.

Just like our grandmas are still learning how to use email and our parents are learning to text, we’re all behind the curve when it comes to keeping up with our kids’ technology use. So, let’s help each other, be kind to one another, ask the hard questions in beneficial ways, and rest assured that in this area, no one has the secret family recipe.

This is the first post in the KCMB series “Parenting in the Tech Age” exploring both the challenges and the relief technology can bring. 

Jenna
Jenna lives in Midtown with her husband and two kids (ages 6 and 4). She has an M.A. in English and too many overdue books at the library. She has been working with writers for over a decade, as a high school teacher, college instructor, and writing coach. She loves good coffee, serious conversation, and not-too-serious fiction.