PenrithParent writes:
Dear Trollacle, I saw this article about The Perils of Texting While Parenting and I am worried that I and those I entrust the care of my child to may be putting her at risk by focusing our attention on our mobile phones instead of our children. Please help!
Well PenrithParent you pose an interesting question. Lets just make sure your motivations for asking this question are pure by ruling something out right now: Even if your kid works at FoxConn you are not going to be able to successfully sue Apple for harming the child, okay? Good.
There’s no doubt that spending a lot of time on your phone means you’ll be distracted. This is why driving or crossing the street while on the phone is not a good idea. It’s the opposite of social Darwinism, because wealthier healthier contributors to society can afford better, more interesting phones and are thus the most at risk. Potentially their kids are too. (Maybe this is why nobody present admitted to hearing Alan Jones’ remarks at that Young Liberal dinner – a room full of rich kids two days after the iPhone 5 came out?)
But parenting is different. Except in rare cases, your crossing the road or driving the car is not directly related to the childs’ welfare. But texting on the phone may be.
If it takes a village to raise a child but our villages are all online then you NEED to be on that phone. If you have a particularly trolly child, you have to vent somewhere.
Tweeting nasty things about the children in your care is a much better idea than hitting them, isn’t it? And if the little one falls over when you’re not looking, call it a lesson in self-reliance and give the kid an AR app to play with.
