Our Kids Are In Competition With Our Phones
No one needs one more thing to feel guilty about, but it can’t hurt to reassess our relationship with our screens.
If you’ve already had your daily dose of mom guilt, go ahead and scroll on by. If, however, you’re in the space to self-reflect, this might be an important thought to carry with you today.
As parents, we’re always aware of everything we have to do for our children. The little tackers need a whole lot of love and care and while our stores of both are boundless, our ability to constantly be fully engaged is not. But TikTok creator Alexis Novoa (@alexisssnovoa) shared a new perspective on how parents are spending their time that might give pause. “Something that absolutely destroyed me as a mom,” she begins. “The generation of children that we are raising are in competition with our phones for our attention.”
If this doesn’t resonate, then it doesn’t apply. But if it immediately makes you feel bad (more on that in a minute) or defensive, maybe sit with that for a moment. Novoa continues...
“It’s often said that our generation of kids was in competition with our parents' jobs for attention, and their generation was in competition with basically other adults ... the whole ‘kids should be seen and not heard’ generation. ... I don’t know why, but for some reason those two points of competition feel less alarming than our phones.”
Novoa concedes that it’s not like phones are only for dilly-dallying and frivolity. As a work from home mom, she understands that working on your phone is absolutely necessary a lot of the time. It’s kind of a mini everything machine: you could be reading the news, replying to a friend’s text, checking out library books, shopping for school supplies, or signing up to volunteer in your community. But before we feel completely absolved, you could also be watching cats sneeze on YouTube for hours on end without realizing it.
We’ve all been there. And Novoa thinks about the times she herself might have been.
“The amount of times that I’ve probably just been on my couch sitting and scrolling when my kids are right there in front of me, maybe trying to get my attention and I haven’t even realized because I’ve been sucked into this little thing,” she says sadly. “Nothing has made me more hyper-aware of what I’m doing on my phone when my kids are around than hearing that.”
It’s certainly true that we could all probably stand to look at our phones a little less. But in our defense: we need a few minutes sometimes and finding that balance can be hard.
We’re not the first to note that this generation of parents is being pulled in an impossible number of directions at all times. Raising our children, maintaining our homes, climbing the corporate ladder or working a second or third job to make ends meet. Cooking, cleaning, volunteering, tending to aging parents, maintaining friendships. It’s no wonder we need to dissociate from time to time! But as Novoa points out, it is worth stopping to assess how and how often we’re turning to our phones when we might spend our time with little ones who are looking to us for attention... that is until they turn into salty teenagers and they spend too much time on their phones.
